I tried to calculate my chances...

Prep School Admissions Prep School Chances
1

Hopefully I can post this here >.<

I decided to calculate my chances of getting into one the following schools:
Exeter, Andover, Lawrenceville, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Choate

Average: 16.2%

Exeter Acceptance Rate: 15%
Andover Acceptance Rate: 13%
Lawrenceville Acceptance Rate: (About) 20%
Hotchkiss Acceptance Rate: 16%
Deerfield Acceptance Rate: (About) 17%
Choate Acceptance Rate: 16%
Added: 97% (This is the acceptance rate if every school accepts completely different applicants)

For the following calculations, I decided to multiply the (assumed) people who would get into [certain number] of the schools and minus that from each school.

(For example, I assumed that there will be 0.1% of all applicants who get into all 6 schools mentioned, so I decided to multiply that by 6 (0.6) then minus that from each school’s acceptance rate)

NAR = New Acceptance Rate
OAR= Old Acceptance Rate

Assuming there is about 0.1% of people who get into all the above schools:
Exeter: 14.4%
Andover: 12.4%
Lawrenceville: 19.4%
Hotchkiss: 15.4%
Deerfield: 16.4%
Choate: 15.4%
Added: 93.4%

Assuming there is about 1% of people who get into 2+ schools (NAR=OAR-1*2)
Exeter: 12.4%
Andover: 10.4%
Lawrenceville: 17.4%
Hotchkiss: 13.4%
Deerfield: 14.4%
Choate: 13.4%
Added: 81.4%

Assuming there is about 0.7% of people who get into 3+ schools (NAR=OAR-0.7*3)
Exeter: 10.3%
Andover: 8.3%
Lawrenceville: 15.3%
Hotchkiss: 11.3%
Deerfield: 12.3%
Choate: 11.3%
Added: 68.8%

Assuming there is about 0.5 of people who get into 4+ schools (NAR=OAR-0.5*4)
Exeter: 8.3%
Andover: 6.3%
Lawrenceville: 13.3%
Hotchkiss: 9.3%
Deerfield: 10.3%
Choate: 9.3%
Added: 56.8%

Assuming that there is about 0.25 of people who get into 5+ (NAR=OAR-0.25*5)
Exeter: 7.05
Andover: 5.05
Lawrenceville: 12.05
Hotchkiss: 8.05
Deerfield: 9.05
Choate: 8.05
Total: 49.3%

So in the end, when I do all the math, I have a 49.3% chance of getting accepted to 1 of the schools.

This only takes into flat acceptance rates, and doesn’t take into account how good I was doing in terms of grades/tests/essays/recommendations/interview/extracurriculars/other aspects of the application. Of course, all of those factors will play into the application, but hopefully this is a good place to start.

*Also, as a footnote, my math isn’t the greatest and my logic may be flawed, if there is any way to help improve these calculations, I would appreciate it!

2

Your logic is extremely flawed. You are assuming (incorrectly) that each school has independent rates of acceptance probability with respect to your application; they don’t. There is no randomness in the process because so many schools use the same selection criteria.

3

@skieurope alright, I’ll just go with the average of all the schools (16%) as a starting point instead. Thank you!

4

@CaffeineCentral You indeed must have had a lot of caffeine to be willing to go through this exercise. This isn’t Yahtzee where we are rolling a bunch of dice and calculating our chances of getting 4 of a kind or a Full House.

As @skieurope suggests, there is a lot of autocorrelation in the admissions process. Just do your best on all aspects of each application, and consider applying to some less selective schools just in case. Even with your flawed calculation, a 49% chance of admission isn’t that great, so expand your list :slight_smile:

5

Even you assume all six schools are independent, your first number is wrong. The probability that you will be at least one accepted is about 1 - (1-0.16)^6 = 65%, not 97%.

6

When you get into BS you can take a stats class :smiley:

7

Another pitfall is that a 16% acceptance rate does not mean everyone have a 16% chance to get enrolled. This is not lottery. You need to calculate the conditional probability given your case. Say, a common wisdom here for a 99% SSAT student is that " you are good but expand the list since you only have 16% chance for any of the top school.". This is too pessimistic and not very informative. If you pick out all 99+% SSAT applicants out of entire candidate pool and then calculate the acceptance rate for this cohort, I bet it is higher than 16%.

8

Wow, the amount of effort you have put into is post is amazing! However, Adding on to what the others have said, boarding school chances (and chances for any school) cannot be calculated with raw data because there are so many different types of students apply to these schools. The acceptance rate we see is the general rate, but I definitely have lower chances if I have all Cs vs As. Maybe what would be a more effective way to calculate chances uses data is by comparing the acceptance rate between financial aid vs full pay students, or students with an average 4.0 vs 3.5 GPA, but even then it would be heavily flawed because there is no data for softer parts of applications like teacher recommendations, interviews, and essays.

In summary: BS Admissions Chances are one of the many things in life you can’t calculate with a few sets of numbers. I appreciate the effort though!

9

@UltimaCroix Yep, I plan on expanding my list! I just wanted to do this as a small exercise because I saw someone “crunch the numbers” and say that everyone has a 76% chance of getting into 1 school (if you only look at the numbers) even if all you apply to is the ESA on Quora, and I wanted to test that out. I’m definitely working hard on my application, thank you! =)

@ahala2000 I’m not completely sure what you meant, for the first calculation I just added all the schools’ acceptance rates together (15+13+20+16+17+16=97)

Also I do understand that this calculation will 100% NOT APPLY to many people, but as I said I was simply (trying (except I failed)) to only look at acceptance rates without taking into account each person’s application quality. I realize that if someone gets a 99% on their SSAT, then they’re much more likely to receive admission than that of a person who received, say, 34%, but thank you! =)

@DroidsLookingFor Haha thanks, I’m considering it xD

@mssweeteaa yep, thank you! I’m definitely not saying “everyone has a 16% chance to get into one of these schools” as obviously I wasn’t taking into account anyone’s application quality and was just trying to crunch numbers to see if some random person on Quora was right, lol. Definitely just going to see where the process goes cause honestly only the admissions officers can actually decide what happens ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Generally, thank you to people who pointed out how flawed my logic (and statistics) was, I’ll definitely work on it next time, good luck to everyone applying, and we’ll all end up where we belong =)