<p>Several books are out there written by former admissions officers of Ivies, if you want to go right to the source. In a nutshell, though, the original Ivies are pretty small, enrolling only about 1000 undergrads a year. The sex ratio is roughly 1:1, so roughly 500 g’s and b’s a year. Then, the priority goes to a certain number of alumni offspring (deliberately vague because amount of contributions, academic quality, and # of kids varies from yr to yr.) Then, athletes have a different set of criteria and # of spots to fill, and their academic requirements are lower, too. Right or wrong, the Ivies like to brag about diversity by filling their ranks with the rare exotic fruit of various minority groups as well, and their academic requirements can be substantially lower, too. All of this boils down to white males being proportionally under-represented at Harvard and the rest. Asians supposedly need to be even better academically. Fair? You probably are not going to think so. </p>
<p>Actually, you do have one thing going for you, and that is your grades improved over time, which they interpret to mean you are maturing. They hate to see academic decline! But if you look at your chances, with all the kids out there who are virtually perfect, your 3.6 is gonna look pretty non-competitive for a school with 20,000 apps and 100 spots for non- athletic white males. </p>
<p>But as a lottery winner from my town said, “You can’t win if you don’t play”. Just don’t be too surprised if you are turned down. And yes, they are encouraging too many kids to apply to make themselves look better even though you are wasting your money.</p>