Highly competitive students apply to most of the same schools, often upwards of 10 each. 269,000 applications to the 8 Ivys in 2016, but the number of unique individuals this represents is never disclosed. A large chunk of the 269,000 are longshots misled by marketing materials or just purely delusional.
Approx. 15,000 freshman are expected to enroll in the eight Ivys. If all applicants apply to all 8–even before slashing all the longshots–there would be roughly 33,000 individuals applying for 15,000-ish slots.
The chances an individual highly competitive student gets into at least one top 15 school are far higher than the seemingly impossible acceptance rates suggest.
@Rivet2000 I would agreed that once you take out “crap shoot” schools like MIT and Stanford, other top engineering schools are a lot more “consistent” in their admission.
Son is a happy sophomore at Stanford studying computer science
I’m not sure, but I think that CMU/SCS is actually harder to get into than MIT or Stanford.
@Rivet2000 Congrats! It just shows that even with the same profile you can get into the one without the other. If you think " MIT places more emphasis on pure-play grades/scores/ECs then the others…" some people may beg to differ.
I only have “data” from Brown, where I interviewed for a long time. There were two types of longshots- the legacy kids, who often were only applying to do mom or dad (or both) a favor, since they knew they couldn’t get in and frankly, didn’t WANT to get in. And then the Boho “I’ve been writing poetry since I was 6” long-shot, whose academics were well below the bar but folks had been telling him/her for a long time, “oh, you are so creative you should go to Brown”.
But they were a pretty small chunk of the applications. The rest were absolutely credible applicants. As alumni interviewers we got detailed stats from our region every year about the profiles, who got in, who didn’t, etc. and I was always blown away by the quality of the kids getting rejected (except for the outliers. I always felt sorry for the Bohos). I also got an eye opener at my last reunion hearing about the legacy kids (children of my classmates) who had been rejected. A kid who was double legacy at Brown, rejected, but accepted at Cornell and Penn. So there may have been something “off” about the application, but it couldn’t have been TOO off. Single legacy at Brown, ended up at Hopkins. Double legacy plus a grandparent, ended up at Williams. These kids were not “unqualified”- but they were still rejected.
It’s nice to believe that thousands and thousands of kids with 480 SAT’s and 2.9 GPA’s are clogging the applicant pool at the competitive admit colleges but I don’t think there is empirical evidence for that.
I’m not sure if others have stated this but it seems obvious to me that elite college admissions involve both randomness and rationality. It obviously is not a pure “crap shoot” because that would not explain the students who receive multiple acceptances to HYPSM. But as so many posters have pointed out, there is indeed a large amount of “luck” involved regarding who gets admitted and who doesn’t among the unhooked RD admits.
@blossom Brown has somewhat low name recognition, so they probably attract a really high % of genuine applicants. HYPS Chicago Duke Columbia (and UCB UCLA Michigan) are more likely to receive longshot apps.
I doubt many 480 SAT’s and 2.9 GPA’s have the motivation to apply anywhere. I was thinking more like 1200-1300 SAT and 3.5-3.8 GPA. Fairly hard working kids, likely top 25% at their high school, but nothing special at a top 20 university.
@LadyMeowMeow If the student has the scores, ec’s, recs, and essays then yes, they can assume that luck may have played at least a part in it (although I believe being Asian is actually a hook for diversity reasons). That was my point. My kid was excellent in math and science, as well as having other talents. I’m sure it all got him as far as the front door. He just wasn’t given the golden key to enter. ;))
@arsenalozil I totally agree. It’s what I keep saying, but some people with kids in the tippy top schools don’t want to hear it. My kid ended up in a top school with about a 23% acceptance rate (at least it was double digits, and he had a chance!), and to this day, I have to say that there had to be some luck involved. He didn’t even interview there because it wasn’t really high on his list, which was a big no no.
@writermom2018 I am sorry but I found your guesswork to be not convincing. Do you have any data to support that most applicants apply to all 8 ivy schools? I found it to be possible of course but highly unlikely. As the 8 schools are rather diverse except their name recognitions, which btw are all higher (rightfully or wrongly) than UCLA/Duke/UMich.
My kid is applying to 1 Ivy. Applying to an Ivy costs at least $100 (sending test scores, app fees, etc.) if you’re not able to get the fees waived due to income. Ivies don’t hand out fee waivers like candy so far as I know (if you know one that will, PM me).
I don’t doubt that there are parents who are willing to foot the bill for applications to every Ivy, but I don’t doubt that there are a lot of unique entrants for each Ivy.
That’s not the “definition of randomness” in admissions decisions. That’s more an indication that they can’t predict which kids will do as well as others with perfect accuracy. For example, suppose a top college switched to a completely objective admission system, which was only based only on SAT score. Everyone who gets a SAT score above a threshold is accepted, and everyone who gets a SAT score below a threshold is rejected. The admission system would be perfectly predictable and clearly not a “crap shoot.” Nevertheless, I’d expect adcoms could make a similar statement that, if they took the highest scoring rejected students with SATs slightly under 1600 instead of the accepted kids with ~1600, the 2nd set would do as well as the 1st set in terms of their usual tracking metrics, such as graduation rate and GPA.
I haven’t read all the posts, so at this point, I may be repeating something.
How much of the application pool are kids who are totally qualified in their high school/area, but not Ivy-qualified? Seems a little ridiculous typing it out, but for example, I knew a girl who applied to Harvard with a ~4.2, pretty high SATs, and some good ECs. She was great, and at my high school, she did very well. But browsing CC she’s not as competitive as probably required.
@theloniusmonk “When adcoms say they can take the kids they admitted put them back in the pool and take another set of kids and know the second set will do as well as the first set, that’s pretty much the definition of randomness. Now of course I think they’re implying they’re pulling from kids that have passed the first screen, but the general point sill holds”
You need to remember that the college “industry” is big business and it’s in their best interest to get as many applicants applying to their school as possible (i.e. acceptance rating as low as possible and yield as high as possible). The above statement gives hope to every high GPA/Tests kids whether or not they have the “IT” or “AND” resume, to apply to their school.
IMO, the above only reinforces the idea that there are many kids who COULD perform as well as other kids however the AOs are not only looking for kids who perform well, but also the ones that are doing some really special things above and beyond what the average, highly ranked applicant is doing. Otherwise the AO’s would just base admissions on your stated randomness factor and have a computer model pick their freshman class. And we know that don’t do that.
Subjectivity combined with objectivity (pure applicant numbers) plays a much more important role in admissions than randomness and luck.
Megan, at which top school is Asian currently a diversity hook? Perhaps if you are a first generation Hmong refugee, or came to the US as a boat person from Viet Nam. But then it’s your personal story that’s compelling (potentially), and not your ethnic origin. The statistics on Asian admissions do not back up your assertion. Diversity as practiced by most colleges means “under-represented population”. Your source?
@blossom Really? That’s what you took away from what I posted? That wasn’t even the major point, which is why I didn’t even bother looking it up. It may not be as big a hook at the ivies as it is in some other colleges. Better?
I’m dying to make a reference to the Eagles QB, Nick Foles, right now
You know, my kid is very smart too. Of the 15 schools she applied to, several on the reachy level accepted her, several at that level rejected her. Same kid, same recs, same stats, different schools. That tells me if there is luck in this process it’s in choosing the right mix of schools to apply to, the ones that fit your kid or that your kid brings something, perhaps a little unusual, to.
That is IMO super insulting to non-Asian kids and kids who are not good at math, science and music. Their acceptances aren’t the “real deal”, you think? Bleh.
At many LACs, including the top ones. Asian students are specifically included in diversity fly-in recruiting weekends at some of them, not at others, and very few at RUs. I think Penn was the only Ivy…I made a list in the “AA/Race” thread a few months ago.
Since we are on the thought experiment here, I actually think the kids who got in solely based on first ever SAT scores will do as well or better than those selected based on this “holistic” approach.
We all agree that there are enough qualified kids to fill the top schools several times over, but only the lucky ones (or the ones with the “AND” factors) got in. The AOs should be pretty confident that the crops they picked, most if not all, will be successful at their schools, they also know that many of the other applicants that they unfortunately could not admit, could do equally well if given the chance. That is my take on the MIT AOs pool swapping scenario.
@OHMomof2 I’m not sure if you’re willfully misreading or have a reason for trying to start something? If you look at my post, you’ll see that I’m letting @megan12 know that obnoxiousness goes both ways: she doesn’t like it when parents of kids accepted to top schools act like their scion were “anointed.” Well, I don’t like it when kids who are in a difficult and competitive demographic get their accomplishments dismissed as due to some sort of hook or random chance.
@Megan12 subsequently enacted the obnoxiousness that I had named – helpfully proving my point that it is real – by suggesting that being Asian was some sort of diversity hook at ivies.
And you decided that somehow I was insulting non-Asian kids AND kids who aren’t good at math, science, and music!? For the record: I was not.
Vanderbilt and other schools in the south have given a small boost to Asian applicants since they are typically underrepresented in those schools. Not sure if Vandy still does give a boost, but they did as recently as two years ago from the experience from several of my students.
