<p>
[quote]
while what the stats teachers said is true, I do not believe they discredit that "if an applicant has a 50% chance at each of the 9 schools he applies to, he has less than 1% chance to get rejected by all."
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<p>Ask statistics teachers what they think of your statement as you have made it.</p>
<p>More apps means a greater chance of getting in, obviously, but the maths used to get the 1% figure is flawed. The underlying assumption is that colleges put the names of all the 2300s into a box and randomly pull out 30% of them; fortunately the process does not work like that!</p>
<p>I thought the problem with the first four conditions (2300 SAT, etc.) was that you're basically saying "all other things being equal" (ceteris parabus). </p>
<p>But what if (as in our case) there's a kid who lives across the street who's the same age, has the EXACT same qualifications (meets all four criteria) AND he's a member of a heavily recruited ethnic minority? Wouldn't that ALSO be a condition? I'm afraid that's how my son sees it. Even if he's perfect at everything, there are at least two other kids in his class who are equally perfect who happen to be members of more desirable groups from an admissions standpoint. I think THIS is what frightens kids sometimes -- not "I'm not good enough" but "what if there's someone better -- or more desirable?"</p>
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I thought the problem with the first four conditions (2300 SAT, etc.) was that you're basically saying "all other things being equal" (ceteris parabus).
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<p>That is the first way that I looked at the problem with the reasoning. Anyway, because colleges do look at other factors, undoubtedly, and because they tend to look at those other factors in a correlated way (pretty much every college prefers URMs to ORMs and legacies to nonlegacies), admission decisions by one college or another are NOT independent in the manner that allows applying the multiplicative rule to calculate overall probability of acceptance at one or more Ivy League college.</p>
<p>Why do people not understand that when claiming something statistically, you set things average because when you are using enough subjects, that eliminates the "uniqueness" factor? Of course there are exceptions and people who are athletes and minorities and legacy. However, all he is claiming that a student with those stats has about a 30% chance on average; not that all students with those stats have exactly a 30% chance of admission. Statisitics don't predict an event...his results don't mean that every single top student WILL get into an Ivy...it just states that every single top student does have a good chance to get into atleast one top school.</p>
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Statisitics don't predict an event.
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</p>
<p>This statement is true. A lot of investors ignore this statement at their peril. </p>
<p>Long-Term</a> Capital Management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia </p>
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his results don't mean that every single top student WILL get into an Ivy...it just states that every single top student does have a good chance to get into atleast one top school.
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<p>The reasoning doesn't support that conclusion, because the reasoning is invalid. But the scarcity of high-scoring students, compared to the number of spaces in their freshman classes of the eight Ivy League colleges, </p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/4958822-post187.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/4958822-post187.html</a> </p>
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</p>
<p>suggests that IF colleges prefer students with high scores (which seems like a reasonable working assumption), then a student with the scores specified in the original post has a high probability of being admitted to the least selective Ivy (because seven other Ivies, and also Caltech, MIT, Stanford, etc. are grabbing up the same group of high-ranking students). That's a rather different approach to the conclusion, and suggests a thread title of "Ivy League Admission Selectivity Is Exaggerated."</p>
<p>
[quote]
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.
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<p>You make it sound like 'stats' are of primary importance in admissions, and the impression teachers have of you and your ability to convey yourself in essays is a mere afterthought.</p>
<p>I don't think that's anywhere close to true, and even if it were, it's a bad, bad way to go about things.</p>
<p>I agree, in part, with zoogies.</p>
<p>There is a sub-theme running through this thread, peppered with anecdotes, about the kids with 2300+ SAT scores and high grades who are unsuccessful in gaining admission to a top school. While I think this is a rather small group, I do think that kids with 2300+ scores draw a lot of attention, unknowingly, to themselves from adcoms.</p>
<p>Firstly they are rather rare. According to last year's CEEB data, less than 4000 seniors in 2006 scored above 2300+ from among all senior test takers. Not all of these seniors will apply to Ivy League or Ivy League-like schools. Many will eschew the Ivies completely and go to their very good, in-state public universities.</p>
<p>Among those with 2300+ scores who do apply, many will not have concommitantly high grades. We are all know one or two of these folks. Smart enough to get good-enough grades through gaming the system, but not either intellectually or academically engaged and motivated. These are the often wait-listed or outright rejects. They are universally and kindly viewed as "not living up to potential." More pointedly, they are seen as lazy. </p>
<p>Among those to whom Truazn refers, I believe bare a very special burden. Viewed by adcoms as the most academically talented of the applicant pool (by virtue of their SATs alone, a gift rather than an accomplishment) the question naturally becomes what did they do beyond simply getting great grades in rigorous courses. Where is the creative intellectual spark? Will this person carry forward an intellectual passion and make a real contribution in their field? Or are they simply better at doing homework? What did they do beyond academcs (since this was relatively easy for them) in developing a talent (arts, athletics) and towards making a real contribution to their communities.</p>
<p>I think those of us lesser mortals with lower scores are held to somewhat different and lower standards. The best among us, in terms of high scores and grades, bare a different burden. It is a double-edged sword, if you were. My advice to them is from the Bible, Luke 12:48 -- "To whom much is given, much will be required." Go beyond your high scores and high grades. Only then can you be certain of acceptance.</p>
<p>Even the top ivies have said that only about a third of their sports are filled for purely academic achievement. With that in mind, there are not as many spots in all of the ivies for the student even with a plus 2300 score and top grades, no glitches in the transcript. When you start looking at the smaller selective schools, it becomes tougher in some ways because the special needs (athletes, URMs etc) for the class become even a larger %. </p>
<p>I do agree with the OP that those with these top score will find a highly select college that will accept them.</p>
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You make it sound like 'stats' are of primary importance in admissions
[/quote]
That's because they are.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Even the top ivies have said that only about a third of their sports are filled for purely academic achievement. With that in mind, there are not as many spots in all of the ivies for the student even with a plus 2300 score and top grades, no glitches in the transcript.
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Incorrect. You are assuming a 100% apply rate to the Ivies for those with 2300+. Not to mention that a 3.9 & 2300+ is more rare still (like when my friend graduated from high school with a 1580/1600 & a 2.3 GPA).</p>
<p>I think that applying to more Ivies does increase your chances of getting in. It does not make you a better applicant but different schools look for different things and you might happen to apply to a school that did not look for your type of person. For example, I know that there are many people who were accepted at Harvard and rejected at Princeton and vice versa.</p>
<p>Also, stats are very important in determining what kind of person you are. I think the next most important thing would be activities since that shows passion that can not be seen in stats. Otherwise I think that the essay is good but I think that GPA, especially, most directly measures the consistency of your ability in all areas. I mean good writers naturally do well on the essay portion but the GPA requires that you do well in all subjects, which I think is a much more significant accomplishment. Of course there is the argument that GPAs mean different things at different schools, since the difficulty level is different but for you to excel at an "easy" school where the surroundings probably do not foster a good learning environment says something too.</p>
<p>There are roughly 13,000 freshman places at the Ivies (depending on how one treats Cornell). Only 4,000 students in any given year score above 2300 on the SAT*. Assuming not all these high scorers will apply to the Ivies and some that do won't have the requisite grades, then we probably have a conservatively high population of about 3,250 students.</p>
<p>If the 1/3 rule holds that the Captain of the House presented above regarding spots slotted for pure academics, than we have about 4,300 open seats. We, therefore, have enough seats to go around for Truazn's population.</p>
<ul>
<li>Analysis excludes those test takers who apply that take only the ACT. These numbers are not yet significant enough at the Ivies.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="depending%20on%20how%20one%20treats%20Cornell">quote</a>
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<p>How are we supposed to treat it? :confused:</p>
<p>Balletgirl- How do you score above 2500 on the SAT? I assume you mean 2300???? </p>
<p>The reference to Cornell is regarding the schools within Cornell that have state affiliation.</p>
<p>Does one count every single seat including those in schools like Hotel Management and the more state-supported schools like Agriculture and Life Sciences or does one count only those in schools that are in sync with the other Ivies? </p>
<p>I think I awarded Cornell 2500 seats, not its full number if all schools were taken into consideration.</p>
<p>MomoftheWildChild,</p>
<p>You are right. It is now corrected.</p>
<p>And you are assuming a 2300 on one sitting, whereas kids do get there through multiple test taking sessions, Balletgirl. Where I live, kids with those stats routinely get turned down from ALL of the ivies and little ivies with those numbers. The same with other competitive areas.</p>
<p>Captain,</p>
<p>The data is from this CEEB document:</p>
<p>SAT Percentile Ranks for Males, Females, and Total Group:
2006 College-Bound SeniorsCritical Reading + Mathematics + Writing. </p>
<p>I can't answer your question regarding number of sitings etc. Perhaps you could do a little digging and find it out for the group. It would be greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>As to the many kids who are getting rejected with those numbers in your neighborhood, I have a visceral and immediate response, those kids and/or their parents are not being fully truthful.</p>
<p>I disagree. You took a convenience survey and found nothing. And it really doesn't matter where you go to college as long as you apply yourself when you get there. All of this calculating and obsessing is slightly neurotic if you ask me.</p>
<p>I further disagree that "this only applies to top students." A good student can be very different depending on which school is looking at your application and who at the school is reading your application. You also can't lump everyone into the same pile, because sons and daughters of legacies or big donors, famous people, athletes, STUDENTS FROM MAGNET SCHOOLS, and URMs get viewed on a different light (even though it may be slightly different, it obscures your results, nevertheless). I agree that good students get accpeted to ivies. But do we have any data on how often good students get rejected to all the ivies? Even when we're using your flawed source of data, who are you to judge if those who didn't make it into the ivy league are "bad" students? Perhaps they never applied? Perhaps they didn't want to go?</p>