<p>My friend as I stated elsewhere on the board had 600's low 700's on SAT I and II's. Only took 2 SAT II's. GPA 89-91 Few AP's and came from a mediocre school in a wealthy NY suburb. Not a legacy ordinary EC's some sports nothing memorable. Did she get lucky or is it just plain easier to get into Stanford than to get into HPY. I know these scores would get a flat rejection at HPY what gives? She applied to this reach to the surprise of her guidance office and shocked everyone by getting in. She made a few trips to New Zealand and Australia, Cambodia and Hawaii but they were really family vacation trips. Does it pay to play a wild card and apply to a place you cant get into? Sure looks like it.
Please respond if anyone knows anything about Stanford I am quite curious.</p>
<p>ps Her essays were really great because she talked about politics and her interest in Rock music, bands etc.</p>
<p>I think the essays made the difference. I really get the impression that Stanford cares about the essays a lot.</p>
<p>Just make sure to talk about your plans for the future in your essays. That goes for any college.</p>
<p>"these scores would get a flat rejection at HPY"</p>
<p>Not trying to be curt, but that is a drastic exaggeration. There are plenty of kids that get into HPY with lower scores than the ones you mentioned.</p>
<p>Let me retract a exaggeration on my part, </p>
<p>replace "plenty" with "a fair amount"</p>
<p>when will people realize that scores aren't the only thing to an application?</p>
<p>Richard Shaw is the new admissions dean. My bet is that essays were weighted a bit more this year with his arrival. Essays have always been big with him. (Previous Yale admit dean)</p>
<p>And no, I doubt that it's easier.</p>
<p>haha well 12% vs 9%...it's not much easier</p>
<p>Do we really have to describe our future plans in our essays?</p>
<p>I always thought of the essays a chance to show our personalities, rather than future plans.</p>
<p>Personally, I didn't (probably because I don't know what my future plans are), and still got accepted.</p>
<p>Stanford had a lower acceptance rate this year for EA than Harvard. 19% vs. 21%. In no way is it easier to get into Stanford than HYP. Each school looks for personality. Personality isn't always found in an SAT score.</p>
<p>sigh, op has a lot to learn from college confidential</p>
<p>my essays sucked... lol</p>
<p>i dont think its easier to get stanford than HYP</p>
<p>I think I was very surprised as she was by the way because she had ordinary EC's. Not Valedictorian, No Captain status, Never founded anything, absolutely ordinary. In fact the school cautioned against applying worrying that it would somehow take away from the school by having her apply. Her grade av. 89-91 GPA 3 AP's total. Im not sure if everyone here understands.. I have not heard that high 600's and one 700 SATII the other 690 is typical of HYP.. I think not but If that is the case I worked way too hard to get into YALE myself. I am absolutely happy for her. I am thrilled that they accepted such a nice person who will work harder than anyone proud to be there. But had she listened to her guidance office she would have lost a golden opportunity. So perhaps I should modify my question to.... Are the admission standards to get into Stanford exaggerated by guidance offices and I will ask that in a new thread.</p>
<p>Not future plans in the way of "I want to win a nobel prize!" but future plans in the sense that "Stanford will help me lead a meaningful life because of my personality" or something. Just something correlates Stanford with your future.</p>
<p>Hmm, this is an interesting topic. My take on this is that NO ONE IN THE WORLD could possibly answer it. My first gut instinct was to cite EA admit rates at both schools, anecdotal stats evidence of individual candidates, but come on, who in their right mind would look at the application they sent to colleges and say "yep, that describes every single facet of me in the last 18 years of my life." In addition, there's a lot of info we don't put on these online forums (or tell other people in conversation) that ended up on our apps, which means the adcoms have more to work with than we do here on our internet forums.</p>
<p>Secondly, the fact that Stanford does/does not have a higher ea admit rate than Harvard or Yale or Princeton means absolutely nothing. How do we know what the quality of those admits are? If Harvard had more outstandingly strong applicants applying EA, then doesn't it make sense they would have a higher ea admit rate? Or if the reverse were true, we wouldn't then say Stanford is less competitive to get into, just because they happened to receive a larger # of strong applications ea and decided to admit a proportionally larger number of kids ea. </p>
<p>The conclusion comes down to the fact that in order to even consider answering this question accurately, one would have had to have read all applications ea with the adcoms at HYP and then read all the applications ea with the adcoms at Stanford. And there ain't a single person in the world who's done that. :D</p>
<p>IMHO, I'd just be glad to get into any one of these awesome schools. And if you're applying to Stanford, Kathy, I wish you the best of luck!</p>
<p>its pretty easy to answer the op's question
"No"</p>
<p>hyp stress scores a lot, whereas stanford probably values personal qualities a little bit more
that being said, you would probably find people with great personal qualities and low scores at hyp as well</p>
<p>you see, these types of questions are always posed due to anecdotal evidence. just cuz one person you kno who had low scores/bad ec's got in doesnt mean its easier to get into one school, and just cuz one person who had terrific scores/ec's got rejected doesnt mean its impossible to get into another.</p>
<p>o cool i didnt know those EA stats. uh not that they matter ^^. one admissions person told us not to talk too much about what you'll do AFTER college, but to focus on what great things you'll do AT their college...<em>shrug</em></p>