Geo diversity does count, as in this case of a kid from North Dakota who got into all 8 Ivy League:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/05/us/nd-teen-ivy-league-trnd/
If this kid with the exact same quantitative and qualitative set of application but from, say, CA or MA, he might not have had the same level of success. There are many kids with similar applications like him who couldn’t even get into one.
@CU123 I haven’t seen anybody suggest that a hook is a guaranteed admit. Another poster argued that the majority of admitted applicants have a hook of some kind, and I wanted to register my doubts about that. I think a lot of Asians and Caucasians distinguish themselves in other ways – and it seems like you agree.
As for geo diversity, I doubt that, too, at least in my kid’s case. I’m not in North Dakota. There’s no lack of ivy applicants & acceptances from my state.
The ND kid is a CC member. If he weren’t qualified, he wouldn’t have had the success. And remember, qualified is more than stats and ECs.
Nobody said the ND kid wasn’t qualified. The post was to point out that geo diversity does come into play in admissions.
agree with @TiggerDad
Yes, all of the top schools like to say that they have all 50 states represented in their incoming class.
@exlibris97 I agree with your
point about the recommendation letters. The schools are getting better as some are getting experienced US college counsellors on staff or retainer. However not all London schools are advanced in this regard.
LACs are being actively pushed by some schools such as St Paul’s Girls. My dd got into 2 top 10 LACs and a girl from
her school got into Swarthmore last year plus I know some this year going to
Pomona, Davidson as well as several to
Williams. Tufts (while technically not
an LAC) also seems to be getting more popular.
Of course, geo diversity plays a role. But it seemed the implication was that it tipped him in.
Here’s a typical breakdown of an ivy. There’s going to be some overlap between these groups, but it seems reasonable to expect at least half the admitted class has some type of hook.
25% - URM
15% - legacy
15% - first generation
10-15% - athletes
I’m not sure if international is considered a hook. If it is, that’s another 10% of the class.
@roethlisburger Two problems with this analysis:
Nowhere, did I assume all those categories are mutually exclusive. Being a legacy and first generation is mutually exclusive.
This is moving the goal post. Whether most admitted students have hooks is a different question from whether the hooked students have similar stats to the unhooked students.
It seems he’s going on matriculated, not admitted.
@roethlisburger According to Harvard admissions, the URM figure this year is much higher which is evidence that outreach activities are working. And one very positive trend is that a growing number of “legacies” are now URMs.
I am wondering what is the percentage of non-hooked admits. DS got into a few ivies with all the opposite of hooks you can think of: Asian male from New Jersey, both parents with post-graduate degrees, upper middle income.
“…had a total of 281,060 applicants for the class of 2021. Of those applicants, less than 10% got admissions offers…” Is a misstatement of the facts. It conflates applicants with applications. The actual admissions rate to IVY’s is significantly higher than the misleading quote states. For example, if the average applicant to IVY’s applied to two of the eight schools, the admission rate/applicant is closer to 20%, if they applied to four, the rate would be closer to 40% and so on. The actual rate, however is unknown, as there is no available cross applicant list for the IVY schools. What this implies is that the IVY’s aren’t all that hard to get in to provided the applicants have stellar stats. I suspect that the likelihood of admissions to at least one IVY isn’t all that different than it was in the past.
“…implies is that the IVY’s aren’t all that hard to get in to provided the applicants have stellar stats.”
You don’t get in, despite stellar stats, if the level of thinking and other attributes isn’t there. Of course, any school with single digit admit rates is hard to get into. The filtering is intense. They can cherry pick. And the admit rates aren’t cumulative. Not a 20% chance of one Ivy, if you simply aren’t presenting as a great candidate, in the first place. It’s much more than stats and your one hs thinking you’re the best.
Look at the chance-me threads and you see it. Brown, Princeton and Stanford show the number in GPA and score ranges admitted (as opposed to matriculants only.) They ask for an app package and the whole needs to speak.
@lookingforward I’m not suggesting that the standards of what it takes to get in haven’t changed, nor am I suggesting that the tolerance for less-than-perfect-in-every-way applicants hasn’t decreased. What I am suggesting is that with individuals submitting multiple applications at a much higher rate than in the past, the actual pool of applicants is probably not anywhere near the 281,060 applications, and if you just look at applicants rather than applications, the odds of getting in to any IVY (as opposed to a specific IVY) aren’t anywhere near as extreme as the 10% number seems to indicate. I probably should have made that clearer in my previous post.
Roethlisburger’s numbers look pretty reasonable, if you account for some overlap, you have about 55% hooked and say 10% international, leaving 35% for unhooked, 20% white, 15% asian. The more important number though is the acceptance rates for hooked vs unhooked, a URM, first gen applicant applying ED has a much higher chance of getting in than na unhooked RD, those odds are almost lottery-esque.
In terms of stats, college board usually releases scores by race and ethnicity, in the old 2400 scale, whites averaged 1576, Asians 1662 and URMs, 1347. There are of course lots of other things that have been shown to affect scores, income being a prime one. UMichigan and UTexas too I believe were taken to the supreme court on affirmative action and some data from UM (old 1600 scale) show that African Amer admits had 1160 with Hispanic Amer, 1260, whites 1350 and Asians, 1400 .
It’s a tricky situation, SATs have always been criticized for not being fair, I think that the writing section was added to make it more fair, but now it’s been replaced by an optional essay.
This post isn’t even remotely factual. Legacies have a 30% acceptance rate at Yale, 42% at Princeton, and 20% at Harvard. It’s WAY easier to get in as a legacy than a URM.
(In reference to someone who said legacy admissions aren’t as easy as URM admissions)
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I am wondering what is the percentage of non-hooked admits. DS got into a few ivies with all the opposite of hooks you can think of: Asian male from New Jersey, both parents with post-graduate degrees, upper middle income."
A lot. Of course more people only get into one, but it seems to me that people who get into at least one of HYPSMC are usually cross admits to other schools. This includes Asians and URMs. This is just personal experience, but I got into YS and M (didn’t apply to H or P, rejected at C) and went to their admit weekends, and you start seeing the same people over and over. It seemed like everyone at Stanford got into a few other top schools who I talked to. Asians included, more people seem to be cross admits to top schools. People seem to either get all/most of the top schools they apply to or none/one. I thought everyone just got into one Ivy, but seeing the same people every weekend and having convos showed me that people who actually applied to all the top schools, if they got into one of HYPSMC you likely got into a few others. The ones that didn’t either: only applied to that one school EA and when they found out they got were so excited they withdrew their other apps, or only really had interest in that one school. It was rare to meet someone who got into MIT but got rejected from Stanford Harvard Yale and Princeton. I’m saying if you get into one of HYPSM, you’re likely to get into a few other ivies. This doesn’t not apply to other top schools
Think about it. Wth would the yield rates of HYPSM be so high as 60-85% when the next highest yield rate is below 50%. (Keep in mind with this theory that most kids don’t tend to get apply ALL of HYPSM. 2-3 is the average range)
It’s the same people who get into all the ivies. They don’t want you to know that. There are actually A LOT of kids who get into 3+. They’re not all on the news, but you start to meet them all. That’s why the ones that aren’t as highly ranked as HYPSM have low yield rates, and they admit more students.
Whether it’s Asians, whites, or URMs, it’s the same people. Which is why I believe there should be a limit to the number of top schools you’re allowed to apply to, because the same people end up taking the spots