@machiavelli1738 what kinds of ECs did you do?
@Testingearly I can see why that would be the case. Most often, a kid that is admitted to HYPSM and Penn (or any other elite non-HYPSM school) RD, is most often going to pick HYPSM right off the bat so she might not even bother going to Quaker days. At Penn specifically, most of the kids who would choose Penn over HYPSM apply and get in ED (mainly to the dual degree programs and wharton), so you wouldn’t see most of them during Quaker Days in the spring. RD admits who would choose Penn over HYPSM do exist but of course are considerably fewer.
On the other hand it is much more common for HYPSM RD cross-admits to be really torn between two or more of the HYPSM schools so that would explain your observation of many more HYPSM admits at Bulldog Days vs Quaker Days
@kgallagher I’ll bite, though this is getting slightly off-topic and I’m not sure you aren’t t r o l l i n g
Aside from peer group and alumni, both at Princeton are indeed advantages:
- Princeton (with some grants) was just as expensive as our state school (UT Austin) for our middle ckasss income
- Princeton engineering has excellent job placement opportunities outside of Goldman Sachs
- Not enough time to get too crazy with SJW in engineering department, though agree with you on this for some other departments
- Social connection aspect, going to school with many mega-wealthy and politically-connected people
- Princeton's undergrad focus = less crowding and far easier to get classes, you must graduate in 4 years, so ROI can be less than 6 years at UT Austin
@HazeGrey - Are you sure you know how those “middle of the pack” legacies are filling their time outside of school? I My D is inovolved in some stuff at school, but not a lot. She does a lot of stuff outside of school that her classmates don’t really know about that I’m sure had a significant impact on her accepts.
Where’s the other article “Here’s what it takes to pay for an Ivy League these days”? Most of the people we know whose kids were admitted (full pay) chose a less expensive alternative.
I LOL’d at “household name hedge fund managers”
Only in the Northeast.
@Testingearly I was also at Quaker days, and I attended the multicultural scholars program for URMs that started a day earlier. I found that many of the URMs had been admitted to other top schools, including HYPMS. I also know that there were 2 URMS at Quaker days who had gotten into all ivies and Stanford, as well as the ND guy who got into all ivies.
For anyone who goes along with the “HY could fill their classes with kids with perfect scores,” argument - they can’t. In 2015 (the most recent year I found data) out of 1.7 million graduating HS seniors who took the SAT, there were only 504 “perfect” 2400s. In fact, going all the way down to 2350 would just barely net the 3300 or so the two schools need to fill their freshman classes. Details here: https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-composite-crit-reading-math-writing-2015.pdf
@tdy123 This actually misses the point.They don’t WANT to fill their classes with students with perfect scores. When I worked in admissions at any Ivy, we spoke in terms of test score “bands” and frankly didn’t distinguish between a 750 and a 790. I can never remember a single committee discussion where someone said, “admit Johnnie because he got a 790 whereas Paula only got a 720”. We did however often reject students who had high SATs and 3.5 GPAs.
Actually there’s an important confounding factor that needs to be considered: the 504 perfect scores listed by College Board do not include superscores, which will be significantly greater in number than 504. Essentially every college relies on superscores for the SAT. I was looking at some figures for the individual subtests the other day and I believe the number of perfect scores on each subtest is in the low five figures, with Math having the most at around 14,000, and 10-12K for the CR and Writing sections. Not that these would all have translated into perfect superscores, but it’s not hard to imagine the number is much higher than 500.
And when we back out the lens a little to look at 2350+ or 2300+, it is definitely true that there are way more students applying than admitted. Consider that Princeton, for the class of 2020, admitted just 12.8% of 2300+: https://admission.princeton.edu/how-apply/admission-statistics
For Stanford, 18% of applicants had a perfect 800 on the SAT Math, with an 8% admit rate resulting in 28% of the admitted class. http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/profile.html
Harvard and Yale should be similar since their 75th percentiles on all subtests are at or around 800.
I have been told sort of off handedly by an admission director at an Ivy that what they look for in the SATs is 7s and in the GPAs is 4s. Then there are other factors
Has anyone attended those university group presentations? You know how groups of universities band together and travel from city to city to promote their schools? Those presentations are lies. All it is is to generate applicants so they can get the numbers as well as $$$. They tell you to not worry too much about test scores. They tell you they don’t judge a person based on a few hours of test, rather they look at the applicant’s overall history. They claim they prefer a well rounded transcript and look for applicant’s attempt and results. They look for leadership, etc. etc. all a bunch of BS.
If I knew 6 months ago what I know now, I would have saved $500 because I definitely would not have let my daughter apply to these elite schools. I am thankful we live in California and my daughter will get just as good of an education from any of the UCs than some of these elites. She will be going to Cal who is ranked as high if not better than the elites I wasted my money on.
I am surprised there are only 504 perfect SAT scores out of 1.7 million. It is even more surprising that some of these are rejected by the elites.
@exlibris97 Thanks for the informative post (#168). Just curious, where would the SAT “bands” be set? Would anything 700 and over be considered in the same band or would, say 700-750 be one band and 751-800 a separate band? Also, if someone has, for example, a 1500, is a 750/750 score the same as a 720/780 score or a 700/800?
Collegedad, an MIT rep on CC recently said the “anything with a 7 in front and we know he’s capable of the four years of work.” It remains to be seen if the New SAT changes this.
At the same time, though, what can matter most, in a highly competitive pool from a geo or for a possible major, is that relevant score. So, not just 720/780, if the kid’s not aiming for STEM. In reverse, a STEM with a 720M may not end up “competitive.” That’s one pitfall in trying to find absolutes re: stats.
“Bands” might be a thinking point at Columbia, but I highly doubt these are fixed in concrete. And it’s far, far from the whole picture.
FYI. We had a local Stanford admissions rep speak at my D18’s HS and one of the things he said was that Stanford rejects 70% of kids who have perfect SAT scores. But I’m not sure now if he meant super-scored or one sitting. 504 out of 1.7 MM doesn’t seem like a lot in this day and age.
And Brown rejects 72% of kids who have perfect ACT scores. Schools don’t release these numbers but I estimate that valedictorians with perfect SAT/ACT scores have only a 50% or less chance of admissions to an Ivy. Holistic admissions means that stats are only one admissions factor of many at top schools.
Brown and Stanford don’t report by total SAT scores, on their websites. (The M and CR are shown.) Princeton does aggregate and shows 87% with 2300-2400 were rejected. That’s not caused by some stretch to take kids with subpar scores. It’s a reflection of how even top performers cant necessarily get it right.
Yes, that’s a pretty potent show that it’s not all about stats.
But how many kids dig far enough to see it?
That’s good news, of course, unless D18 scored 1,560-1,600 on last Saturday’s SAT test. If she does, then I think she should get automatic admittance. :))
There could be points for having a parent on CC. But I think you’d need more posts.