<p>.. there's a near 60% chance that you'll get into one.</p>
<p>Rubbish calculation ? :S</p>
<p>This fella in my class actually applied to all 8 .. so was just wondering ....</p>
<p>(Used the Binomial theorem for probability distribution. Using an avg acceptance rate of 10%; so the real number could be even higher.)</p>
<p>...except your chances of getting into an Ivy League college isn't random.</p>
<p>if you take the entire applicant pool of the ivy league assuming they all applied to every school in the ivy league (which is not true) the chance of selecting a random student from that pool who was accepted to one of the schools would be 60%</p>
<p>as for an individual applicant, there is either a 100% chance that they will be accepted to one, or a 100% chance that they will be rejected, applying to more simply provides a larger field of possible 100% acceptances</p>
<p>Assuming that the academic credentials are on the upper 75th percentile, your calculations MIGHT work. But then, there're the Teacher recs, essay, background, etc.</p>
<p>This is a FAQ. Here is my answer to the FAQ. </p>
<p>Wrong extreme idea 1: </p>
<p>Some students "reason" that if an applicant applies to all eight Ivy League colleges, his chance of admission at any one of them is the same as the average base admission for all of them (which is wrong assumption a). Then the students "reason" that because the eight admission committees don't all meet in the same room, that they select students "independently" in the STATISTICAL sense (which is wrong assumption b). The students then misapply a formula learned in high school that only applies to differing situations, to calculate that the chance of getting into some Ivy League college is almost a sure thing. </p>
<p>What's wrong with wrong assumption a is that a weak applicant for admission at the least selective Ivy League college is a weak applicant at all the other colleges in the league, and that means that applicant's chance of admission anywhere is well below the base rate of admission for any Ivy League college. </p>
<p>What's wrong with assumption b is that usually colleges don't have to actively collude to end up choosing similar kinds of applicants. ALL colleges prefer stronger applicants to weaker applicants. A teacher of statistics explained to me what "independence" means in the sense used by statisticians: "What is independence? It means that when you learn about the outcome of one event, it has no influence on your guess about the probability of success in another event. However, in this case, if a student gets rejected from 8 schools, that DOES influence my guess about how likely he is to get rejected from the 9th school. I'd say someone who gets rejected from 8 schools is more likely to get rejected from the 9th than someone who didn't get rejected from 8 schools." In other words, even if colleges act independently in the layman's sense of the term, you can't use the multiplicative rule of probability to figure out the joint probability of being admitted to one out of the eight Ivy League colleges. Plenty of students get rejected by all eight. </p>
<p>Other threads from time to time bring up </p>
<p>Wrong extreme idea 2: </p>
<p>Ivy League admission officers are thin-skinned and personally offended if you apply to their "competitors," and will reject you if you apply to all eight Ivy League colleges. </p>
<p>Well, that's just ridiculous. There are plenty of students each year who are admitted to more than one Ivy League college (of course, those are rather extraordinary students) and there are at least a few each year who apply to all eight and are admitted to all eight. Ivy League colleges do NOT collude in this manner when making admission decisions. They admit the students who they think will fit well into the next entering class and contribute to the campus community. The bottom-tier Ivy League colleges admit a lot of students who don't enroll (that is, those colleges have rather low "yield,") because they admit some students who prefer to enroll at one of the OTHER Ivy college colleges that admitted them. Each college has its own tricks, in five cases including binding early decision programs, to identify students who genuinely prefer that college, but in the regular action round, every college admits some students who are also admitted by some of the other Ivy League colleges, perhaps all of the Ivy League colleges. </p>
<p>Bottom line: don't worry about either wrong, extreme idea. Apply well to all of the colleges that interest you. (You've already applied, haven't you, as of the date of this post, if you've met this year's deadlines, right?) There is little point in applying to a college you wouldn't possibly attend if admitted, but there is every reason to apply to a college you like, because you can't get in if you don't apply.</p>
<p>P.S. I will move this thread to the College Admissions Forum where it is much more on-topic.</p>
<p>also in reference to my previous post i think the chance of that applicant being accepted would be 60% also assuming that there were no cross-admits.</p>
<p>since the stronger applicants (if everyone applied to all 8) would have likely made up the majority of all the accepted students (if there were cross-admits), the % chance that a given student was accepted to one would be lower than all their admission rates combined</p>
<p>I've applied to two. But I just brought this up because my friend's guidance counselor was almost certain that she'd make it to one of the eight. She has good stats, mind; not really top tier...</p>
<p>if your family has the money to do it and you have the patience and time, you might as well if going to an ivy league school is something that really interests you</p>
<p>^I personally feel it's just sick. Except for the odd applicant, no one can possibly want to go to every ivy league school considering how different they are from each other. And going all out just because they're Ivies is about as slimy as it gets.</p>
<p>it's just the way of the world. students just want to get ahead, sometimes at the expense of "fit" or "happiness"</p>
<p>i wouldn't personally say there's anything wrong with that, it's just a matter of priority. sometimes these two things aren't mutually exclusive, as for some i'm sure happiness is based on being surrounded by bright, ambitious students at a prestigious university.</p>
<p>now, if they were applying to the ivies as a group instead of other top schools (like duke, etc.) at the expense of fit, that is another story</p>
<p>but i will agree judging from things i've seen, heard, and visited among various ivy league schools that culture varies widely across the conference</p>
<p>Why is money a factor in applying to Ivy League schools...?</p>
<p>Possibly if you're not Dumb.</p>
<p>lots of people do that... they all offer a great education and high prestige. not exactly slimy, maybe misguided but not slimy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why is money a factor in applying to Ivy League schools...?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>i was assuming for application fees to eight different schools</p>
<p>Yes, for some students the application fees alone are a substantial amount of money. Some family budgets allow more college application expense than others.</p>
<p>lol this has been brought up so many times. I don't think any has found any way to refute this claim effectively on teh premise that 1. the applicant is actually a very strong applicant who has a relatively good chance at all the ivies and 2. that the quality of the applications don't suffer just because the applicant is applying to 8 schools.</p>
<p>I think it can basically be agreed upon though, that if you are a mediocre candidate who doesn't stand out, there is certainly a good chance you will be rejected by all the ivies. My point is, this holds less true for strong applicants who will be strongly considered by adcoms.</p>
<p>Too bad college admissions aren't mathematical.</p>
<p>And hey, that still leaves a 40% chance of being rejected by all of them.</p>
<p>Certainly, anyone who is truly a strong applicant at [most selective of the eight Ivy League colleges] will be a very strong applicant indeed at [least selective of the eight Ivy League colleges]. All eight have to fill up their freshman classes every year with somebody. </p>