<p>So then what's the acceptance rate for the College ED vs RD ?</p>
<p>Check with the statistics from your high school for acceptances from previous years. My daughter's high school must have done something awful to Penn. Last year (class of 06), 45 kids applied, and only one got in! Penn rejected someone RD with a 1600 and a 97 average. In contrast, Harvard took six kids RD and Columbia A/S took 13 RD (Columbia SEAS took 15 RD).</p>
<p>That doesn't tell breakdown by undergraduate school.</p>
<p>This thread had some of that info:</p>
<p>Venkater, we had a bball player from my high school last year get recruited to wharton and he fit the exact profile of the type of athletes you had described. Some people say it affects the GPA curve (in what manner I have no clue...)</p>
<p>I personally think Yale is the toughest Ivy to get into, followed by a tie? between Princeton and Harvard. Brown probably follows, then maybe dartmouth? Penn and Columbia depends on which school you are applying to at either one. Cornell is by far the easiest to get into.</p>
<p>Columbia scares me. I've heard it's an awesome place to be, but it's really cutthroat. At Penn, the atmosphere isn't the same.</p>
<p>"going to africa and starting an advocacy program" as someone mentioned, is not particularly special when you look at what students have done who now go to ivy leagues like penn. no offense... but it just isn't, especially for international students here, who tend to be phenomenal in order to get in unless something else was at play (athlete, legacy).</p>
<p>i've led such projects in areas in Asia and Europe, and the girl who sits beside me in class started a Darfur project going directly into the region, while the kid sitting on my other side started a pharmaceutical company that's been widely successful in florida. sure there are kids here at penn who are just "regular really smart kids", but its the same at the other ivies too... you need some 'normalcy' to dilute the craziness. you can get into any ivy as a "regular, really smart kid" who just has high grades and lots of student extracurriculars... but your essays will probably need to give them a particular reason to accept you over the other regular smart kids. not everyone has done crazy innovative things, so they will accept those who haven't. at the same time, crazy innovative projects are still surprisingly common here.</p>
<p>maybe it's because i don't come from the states and so i wasn't immersed in this crazy mentality of just wanting to get into a good college, but if you "just barely get in" i doubt you'll stand out once you get here, and it's better to stand out at a less famous school than to sink at penn. i'm not assuming that if you just barely get in, you aren't destined to do well here, but i would at least think about what type of campus would work best for my own profile. on a campus full of leaders, it will be harder for you to lead... just weigh the trade-offs when it comes to applying for grad school or whatever else later on.</p>
<p>Wash U is really weird when it comes to admissions. I've known people that have gotten into Stanford, Penn, Columbia, Northwestern, and Berkeley (out of state) and gotten waitlisted at WUSTL. Contrary to that, people who normally get rejected from those schools make it in to Wash U. What's the dealio?</p>
<p>Wash U is really big about demonstrated interest...if a student is too good for them, they will waitlist them, because they believe the student is looking at better schools. If the student is just right, they'll admit them, because they think that that student will probably attend.</p>
<p>Those numbers are for "admitted", not "enrolled" from post #23. Depending on how a school does in cross-admit battle, the difference can be significant. Schools love posting stats for admits because they are usually higher (with the exception of HYS). They shouldn't be used to compare with "enrolled" class profiles of other schools. The numbers used by US News are for "enrolled".</p>
<p>It's usually called Tufts Syndrome for reasons I think are faulty.</p>
<p>Isn't UPenn second easiest Ivy to get into ?</p>
<p>I think that kids with no weaknesses would normally get accepted to Penn. E.g., 2250, almost all A's, as many AP's as possible, good EC's, good recs, good essays.</p>
<p>For HYP, even nearly perfect credentials get rejected.</p>
<p>It's also important to compare size: Penn's school has, what, 10K kids? which is abt half of HYP, right? So acceptance is at least a little bit influenced by the fact that Penn won't mind taking twice the number of students as the other ivies.</p>
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I think that kids with no weaknesses would normally get accepted to Penn. E.g., 2250, almost all A's, as many AP's as possible, good EC's, good recs, good essays.
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<p>Wrong. Several in my school with higher stats than me got rejected (ED & RD). Look at the admissions stats and see how many vals, sals & 2300+ got rejected.</p>
<p>That's because most vals and sals don't have both really good SAT scores and good ECs... The val/sal at my HS both have good SAT scores, 2200+, but their ECs are awful, they have no leadership positions anywhere, and yet they're still applying to schools like Penn.</p>
<p>But if a student has great grades, 2300+, good ECs, and good everything else, they def stand a better shot than the kids I described above. Obviously there are always exceptions, some applicants might just rub admissions people the wrong way or somethng, but it's not like getting into Penn is the same as getting into HYP, where you need to be absolutely amazing in all aspects.</p>
<p>Adriana, graduating from Penn holds a lot of weight. When you graduate college and apply for a job, they don't really look at your grades, but more of where you came from. Having graduated from an Ivy League school will obviously impress people more than most other schools. I'd rather be a small fish in a big pond (like Penn) than a big fish in a small pond.
No matter where you got to college, your experiences will be relatively similar (being independent, adult-like, etc etc). Your college doesn't determine who you are. You can still be a leader in school like Penn if that's really who you are.</p>
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But if a student has great grades, 2300+, good ECs, and good everything else, they def stand a better shot than the kids I described above. Obviously there are always exceptions, some applicants might just rub admissions people the wrong way or somethng, but it's not like getting into Penn is the same as getting into HYP, where you need to be absolutely amazing in all aspects
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<p>I agree that they "stand a better shot", but there are no guarantees, particularly if you come from an over represented area of the country. You may not have to be as unique an applicant as a typical HYP admittee, but you have to have more than just stats and conventional leadership ECs. We've all swapped stories here of high school classmates accepted to Harvard or Yale or Princeton who were rejected by Penn. Some of them weren't even that "amazing".</p>
<p>uh yah penn rejects hundreds of valedictorians each year... just look up the numbers.</p>
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<p>i guess if your primary motive is just to get a nice cushy job, then going to an ivy may be much better considering the networking that can be done. but being a sub-par student at an ivy, to me, is much more of a let down personally, than being a top student at a slightly lower-tier school. the second type of profile has more opportunities and flexibility. being sub-par, you only have the famous name of your school to carry you around... and that can only take you so far.</p>
<p>also, it's not the case that if you're a leader in high school that you'll automatically be a leader on campus. again, in a campus full of leaders, somebody is going to have to follow. at the same time, there are more opportunities for leadership, which helps a lot. in my ben franklin seminar, we track changes in attitude and involvement of students from high school into senior year at penn over many years, in all schools and majors. there's definitely huge, huge differences...</p>
<p>i agree with quaker10. it's a crapshoot. most kids from toronto that i know were only accepted to one ivy and not the others... and they were all over-qualified. whether one kid is accepted to yale and not the others vs. to columbia and not the others is not a difference in quality of application. too many kids are rejected from less-famous ivies and accepted to the more famous ivies...</p>