Ivy League Admissions Difficulty is Exaggerated

Applying to College
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<p>As this time of year comes by, I'd like to give one advice from what I learned last year after the college admissions process that I think may be helpful for some of you.</p>

<p>Despite what you hear from your parents (especially if you're asian), or anything you read on this site, IF you are a TOP student, you stand an EXTREMELY GOOD chance of getting into at least a couple of the Ivies. </p>

<p><strong>Disclaimer</strong> this only applies to students with TOP GRADES/SCORES
This only applies if:
1. You scored over 2300 on the SAT
2. You have a 3.9+ GPA with a challenging courseload
3. Have 700+ (or 750 for you asian-gunners) on SAT II's.
4. Your teachers don't hate you with a passion and you can write english in a grammatically correct fashion.</p>

<p>If you have the criteria listed above and apply to all 8 Ivies (I AM NOT ADVOCATING THIS BY ANY MEANS), you will 90% get into at least one of them. You do NOT need to have "GODLY" EC's. It's like this:</p>

<p>Let C = "score" needed for admissions
Let A = "academic factors (GPA/Grades/SAT)'s"
Let C = "Extra curriculars... other 'soft' factors"</p>

<p>A + B = C. </p>

<p>If A is very high, you need very minimum of B, although the converse does not stand true (i.e. EC's, unless something like IMO, will not compensate for poorer grades)</p>

<p>I will cite empirical evidence. I graduated from a very rigorous public magnet high school. Out of a class of ~150 kids, we had 60 Ivy League acceptances. The majority of those kids had nothing spectacular enough that if you were to look at them, you'd go "WoW". </p>

<p>Of course it's a spectrum.
H-Y-P-Wharton-Columbia-Brown-Dartmouth-Penn-Cornell. You usually need more EC's on the left end than the right end. Penn and Cornell are very large schools and need people to float their stats so if you have the requisite stats (i.e criteria listed above), you'll likely get in.</p>

<p>To some of you, you may be going "Uh with those stats OBVIOUSLY that person will get in". Well for you guys, believe it or not some people have at times posted on this forum about whether they should retake a 2300+ and aim for a 2400. This is meant for those people. For others, you may be "Uh, but stats don't mean anything and there are TONS of applicants with those stats". I was one of the latter when I applied and thought the Ivy League applicant pool was swimming with students of this caliber. NOT TRUE AT ALL. According to Collegeboard, last year out of 1.5 million SAT takers, only 1500 managed to score above a 2350. </p>

<p>So this applies more for the really hyped-up anxious (asians-- sorry to stereotype but only speaking from personal experience). If you have these stats. Don't worry, you stand a good chance.</p>

<p><strong>EXCEPTION</strong>: Only school where I've seen 2300+'s routinely denied/deferred is MIT.</p>

<p>Edit: I forgot where I saw this but there was a graph on a college counseling site study that plotted SAT scores vs acceptance rate for Ivies. In every one of the Ivies, anyone scoring above a 2300 automatically had ~30% chance of acceptance. When you consider that for HYPC 30% is 5x the regular decision acceptance rate, this is a dramatic increase.</p>

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<p>good advise
a lot of kids i know are stressing out way too much</p>

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<p>only 1500 get above 2350?</p>

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<p>@Lucashkhan,</p>

<p>Yes it was up last year on one of the counselorconnections thing on Collegeboard. It's hard to believe, I know. I wish I knew earlier so I didn't worry about the "50" points i "lost" on the SAT's. -_-;</p>

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<p>I know there was a study done on SAT score versus chance of admittance to Princeton, Harvard, etc. Does anyone have the link to it? It actually had charts that showed a person's chance of being accepted versus SAT. It was a really interesting study.</p>

<p>I'm not saying the difficulty of getting into the Ivies is exaggerated, but I do think that people on CC tend to stress about it a bit much.</p>

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<p>Fair enough, but two things.</p>

<p>Your conclusion doesn't match your premise. It really is quite difficult to get in to an Ivy (tougher for some schools than others, obviously). All you've shown is what we already knew -- top students tend to get in and the odds of getting in to one of them improve if one applies to all.</p>

<p>Most of the people obsessing about their scores and grades are a little over the top, no doubt, but a good number of them are focusing only on the very toughest Ivies. So the probability of getting into Cornell isn't relative to them.</p>

<p>But good work.</p>

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<p>1849 scored 2350 and above. 1427 scored 2360 and above.</p>

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<p>that's in one sitting. there's no mention of superscoring, which is how a great number of test-takers achieve such high scores.</p>

<p>your anecdote is also skewed. within a well-regarded magnet school, one could very well get into an Ivy League school very easily. But most schools are not like yours. most schools do not have fame, fortune, or an extremely motivated and gifted class. so most schools in the nation get around 0-3 Ivy League acceptances per year. it is not easy to get a 2300+ (what about people who take the ACT? Many score over 32 on that test, which is within/above the range of most Ivy league schools) on your SAT. It's not easy to get 700+ on your SAT IIs, or to maintain a 3.9 UW GPA throughout high school. Finally, the holistic method promises that strong academics must be backed up by something--good essays, recommendations, extracurriculars, etc. </p>

<p>Your school may have fantastic writers or really flattering teachers. Perhaps your school has an award-winning Mock Trial team or something. Something is special about your school, considering 60 acceptances. it is not the norm for this country.</p>

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<p>This isnt meant to address the average student in the US, nor even the average student on this board.</p>

<p>This thread is meant to put at ease some of those SUPER-ANXIOUS overachieving 2300+/3.9+GPA'ers who still fret they might not get into an Ivy simply because they didnt cure cancer or solve world hunger.</p>

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<p>Wow, this is a rather comforting posts... I'm only applying to two Ivies, and frankly, neither of them are my first choice, but it's good to hear regardless.
I meet all of the criteria except for SAT, where I'm a little short with 2260... But if that freaks me out, then the comforting nature of this article is no longer helpful, so I won't let it...</p>

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<p>I'm probably just kidding myself, but I'm hoping that I'll stand out for personal characteristics, huge improvement, and interesting ECs even though I'm not a perfect student... ah well. One can dream/stress.</p>

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<p>there's nothing that will persuade the super-anxious to quit being super-anxious. it's just how people are sometimes.</p>

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<p>Still a very good student though, with good scores. HOPE :-(</p>

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<p>
[quote]
According to Collegeboard, last year out of 1.5 million SAT takers, only 1500 managed to score above a 2350.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>People often take the SATs at more than one sitting, most people I know took the SAT or ACT more than once, those stats are only for single sittings. My math score went down 30 points, my critical reading score went up 50, and my writing score went up 30. Colleges went farther than just counting my score as a 2250 but the super-scored 2280.</p>

<p>I'd agree with the fact that people with high test scores obviously have a higher chance of admission, but people worry for the fact that the admission rate is NOT 100%, so that there is the chance that he or she might not get in. 30% is not that high of a percentage. At Duke, there are definitely people w/ 1600/2400's and all the other things you say who are there because HYP didn't take them. </p>

<p>College admissions is ridiculously random. For instance, from my school, I got into Duke. Three current Ivy League students from my school didn't get in to Duke (the schools they are attending are Penn, Columbia, and Princeton). I didn't get into any of those schools.</p>

<p>I don't know what Duke saw in me and what Duke didn't see in them. This is something one will never know. The reason why top college admissions seems so difficult is that one can never really know if he or she is getting in till the decision comes out. If someone would have told me that I would have got into Duke and Dartmouth but not Cornell and Penn CAS, I would have thought it was a funny joke. However, that reality happened and I couldn't be happier because of it, lol. </p>

<p>What I am saying is that we know that the top students have a really good chance of getting into top schools, and most in fact do. Heck, I'm a lazy ass who did pretty good on his SATs and I still got into an Ivy. I wouldn't say difficulty is exaggerated though, there is a chance one will get in and a chance one won't get in, some people have higher chances than others. I wouldn't say anyone is a sure accept to any of the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, NU, or any of the other top top colleges out there.</p>

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<p>Agreed. I should clarify my statement.</p>

<p>Your chances at any one school is random.
If you say to yourself, "I want to get into ... Columbia". Your chances, unless truly amazing stuff, is more or less wishy washy ~we'll use 30% (RD acceptance rate at the College last year was 5%).</p>

<p>Okay but my original point was assume 30% at all 8 Ivy league schools (for the person that applies to 8)</p>

<p>The chance of rejection of any one independently is 1-0.3 = 0.7 => 70% right?</p>

<p>The chance of being rejected from EVERY SINGLE IVY with those stats are, mathematically, 0.7^8 = 5.76%</p>

<p>So statistically, assuming you have an equal, independent 30% chance of admissions based on those SAT and GPA's (which is supported by the data i cited earlier), if you apply to all 8 Ivies, you have a 100% - 5.76% = 94.3% of admissions into 1 of them.</p>

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<p>Oh, I see. That does make a lot of sense, now that I come to think of it.</p>

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<p>See </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/413821-sat-score-frequencies-freshman-class-sizes.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/413821-sat-score-frequencies-freshman-class-sizes.html&lt;/a> </p>

<p>for more perspective on this. </p>

<p>But see also </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/377882-how-do-top-scorers-tests-fail-gain-admission-top-schools.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/377882-how-do-top-scorers-tests-fail-gain-admission-top-schools.html&lt;/a> </p>

<p>for the reason to look at other issues besides test scores.</p>

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<p>


</p>

<p>Absolutely no professional statistician would analyze the problem this way.</p>

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<p>Funny thing about truazn's method: I've seen it discussed (OK obsessed) here on CC about a half dozen times, and shot down a half dozen times. </p>

<p>If a person has one percent at one IVY, the likelihood is that he has zero percent at ALL eight of them. If a person has say for argument's sake a 40% chance at one, he probably has a 20-50% at the other seven. </p>

<p>Correlation and causation, folks. Check the methodology.</p>

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<p>i hope you're right... i'm applying to 6 ivy leagues... we'll see in april.</p>