For a school like Princeton or Stanford, with roughly 50k applicants each year, how much do you think are qualified? Very qualified?
By qualified I mean those who pass the academic cutoff with all A’s or nearly all A’s in the most demanding courseload.
By very qualified I mean you have the academics above (maybe even a bit more with dual enrollment or a string of 5’s in hard APs), but you also have strong school involvement with leadership and awards (not necessarily needing to be at a national level, regional/state recognition is ok).
Everyone’s definition of “qualified” is likely to vary a bit. For me, the truest barometer is whether a student will be able to perform the coursework necessary to thrive and graduate from the school.
A significant amount of self-selection occurs during the application process. Practically no students with 2.7 GPA and 18 ACT are applying to T50 universities. Therefore, I think the vast majority of applicants to each university are capable of graduating from those universities. At least 80% of applicants.
So many kids have very high GPAs that there are likely far more "qualified " applicants. Test prep and TO and the ability to apply to many schools would suggest to me that it’s well above 50%.
One can’t talk about “qualification” without referencing some defined standard. More students are “qualified” if the standard is lowered, and vice versa. Students today have ready access to more information than those in the past, but I have yet to see any evidence that they’re smarter as a result.
Stanford’s Dean of Admissions mentioned a few years ago that 80% of their application pool was fully qualified to attend and succeed at Stanford. So that’s one data point.
In short, you can’t compete on stats alone. There are far more “qualified” applicants at these tippy top schools than available spots. Also remember that a large chunk of seats will go to athletes, URMs, FGLIs, those bringing geographic, demographic, and other types of diversity, those playing certain musical instruments the school needs for its band and orchestra, legacy applicants, etc. Then a few more seats for children of mega donors and faculty. If you’re unhooked you’re competing for the relatively few remaining seats.
What schools do you have on your list other than these highly rejective ones?
Most applicants to these elite colleges are well qualified applicants. And the very vast majority will have completed all of the required and recommended high school courses these schools have on their list.
Why are you asking?
You have several threads about courses, grades, etc. I would strongly suggest that you look at schools where YOUR HS course completion, grades and standardized test scores will make you a strong applicant instead of continuing to ask whether applicants who don’t meet one of these bars can get accepted to elite colleges.
75-80% are qualified to do the work at these schools. That’s why it’s so difficult to get in and why URM, legacy, sports etc plays a weighted role in admissions.
So this reminds me of something funny for like 6 years ago. I actually called Northwestern to ask them what they look for in a candidate . I was just learning and educating myself. The AO said they don’t even look at grades really since you would have to be stupid to apply and not have the grades and stats…
