Ivy League Admissions Difficulty is Exaggerated

<p>read post below</p>

<p>T26E. </p>

<p>You're absolutely correct.
But you clearly didn't read my first post.
We assumed a set of stats (2300+ SAT's, 3.8-3.9+GPA's, 700+ SAT II's) that would give the average applicant with these stats ~30% at each of the Ivies averaged. (Some research group had a table to show acceptance rate and SAT Score correlation and found that anything above a 2300 ~ 30% acceptane on average).</p>

<p>So this is not the same thing as we are not taking a random student without making any assumptions about his academic abilities. IN fact, this is the latter part of your statement "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>Keep this in mind and relook at my method on the previous page.</p>

<p>So from this we can conclude that ANYONE WITH THE PREREQUISITE COMPONENTS (as defined by Post#1) has a 94% chance of admissions to at least 1 Ivy if they apply to all 8. This is, a legitimate and accurate estimation and frankly, I've seen it happen at my school. No one with stats like these got shut out from every Ivy.</p>

<p>trueazn8948532 you're assuming that the probabilities of getting into each ivy are independent of each other. but we know that's not true. it's not a random process; someone who is more likely to get into one ivy will have better chances at others.</p>

<p>wow enlightening post. i'm not saying I'm feeling good about getting into an ivy, but I'm saying you've pointed somehting out.
I've been seeing people all the time -- who i deem not qualified at all -- applying to ivies. some people just are full of themselves when they get a 31 and #15 in the class (my friend). But that makes me think... so that's why the acceptance rate is so low. You always have those people who apply to 1 ivy just for the hell of it.</p>

<p>How about we all just apply to only community college and say 100% chance!</p>

<p>i would like to see the graph that shows how 2300+ will automatically give u 30% chance in ivy league schools.</p>

<p>I'll try to look for it.
I saw it I think last year where they plotted the acceptance rate vs SAT score for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and MIT. It was jagged line with a noticeably upward slope. from ~0% --> 30% at ~2300. </p>

<p>And exactly, they are not independent events. WHich is why we can assume that people with a 30% shot at one Ivy has more or less that much chance at another. (Or at least it evens out i.e someone who these stats has definitely a 50%+ chance at cornell and considerably lower at HYP).</p>

<p>FOUND IT:
<a href="http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/revealedprefranking.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/revealedprefranking.pdf&lt;/a>
Look at page 7. Notice that the y-scale is in decimals~ .1 = 10% etc.</p>

<p>And you know what? I underestimated. According to this, scoring in the 99th percentile (2300) gives you 40% at Yale and Princeton, 30% at Harvard, and 50% at MIT.</p>

<p>So assuming a student that scores in the 99th percentile for SAT's. Let us assume that this is ~2300.</p>

<p>According to this HARVARD revealed preference study, the average student with these scores has 50% at MIT, 40% at Y & P, and 30% at Harvard. We'll for the sake of ease, call the average of these to be 40%.</p>

<p>Revised Acceptance Probability if Apply to HYPM (and it's likely to be higher for the rest of the Ivies):</p>

<p>Chance of being rejected from 1 IVY/MIT = 60%
Chance of being rejected from all 8 Ivies and MIT = (60%)^9 = 1.0078%
Chance of gaining admittance into AT LEAST ONE IVY (and likely HYPM since the 40% is based on these) = 100% - 1.0078% = ~99%.</p>

<p>The reason this is different from previous calculations is that assuming the average 10% acceptance rate at Ivies says nothing about the caliber of student that applies. There can be someone dumb who has ~0% to any, and someone brilliant who has 90% at all of them.</p>

<p>However, using this method and the data above (see Harvard revealed preference page 7), supposing a 2300 SAT score and good GPA's/SAT II's, the student applying to HYPM (and likely the other ivies) would have a ~99% of acceptance at at LEAST ONE of them.</p>

<p>Q.E.D
My method is correct.</p>

<p>i didn't read yet ... it just looked at the graph... but it's interesting how there is a hump and it slopes back down before going back up</p>

<p>PLEASE READ "If You Score a 2300+, You Have a 99% Admit Chance at HYPM" THREAD IN wHICH I SUMMARIZE THE PROOF THAT IS KINDA IN PIECES ON THIS THREAD.</p>

<p>Very cool study. Helps to have taken a stats class</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>No, we can't conclude that AT ALL on the basis of the assumptions stated.</p>

<p>"trueazn8948532 you're assuming that the probabilities of getting into each ivy are independent of each other. but we know that's not true. it's not a random process; someone who is more likely to get into one ivy will have better chances at others."</p>

<p>I don't see what is confusing so many people about this method. it's fairly straightforward math- you can multiply the probabilities of independent events. even if you don't assume that a certain candidate has the same chance at every school, it really doesn't change the end result- that people have far better chances of getting into at least one of their reaches than they think.</p>

<p>say you have a 35 % shot at Cornell, 30% at UPenn, 25% chance at Princeton, 20% at Stanford, 15% at Yale and 10% at Harvard...</p>

<p>individually, you have bad odds at each school, but collectively the odds of getting into at least one of them is 80%.</p>

<p>the admissions decisions are largely independent- they don't influence each other. admissions odds are only dependent on the candidate's application and the school criteria. Harvard doesn't see look to see that Yale admitted X candidate, and then alter the X's odds accordingly. it just doesn't work like that.
hence it's a fair assumption that we can multiply probabilities.</p>

<p>Tokenadult, please read my other thread "If you have a 2300+SAT you have a 99% Admit Chance..." for a comprehensive proof.</p>

<p>truazn, let's say an applicant has a gpa of 3.7-3.8 and everything is upto par with your requirements for good chances at ivies. so chance of getting into an ivy is approximately 12-15 percent. - chance of not getting in = 88 percent let's say.
1-.88^8=64%
this number is way too high in my eyes
i think ivy league admissions process is not completely random, but you are making it seem like one.
if you will get into an ivy, chances are, you will also get into 2-3 ivies. same is true with other top 20 schools if you break them down more into groups by selectivity</p>

<p>How am I showing that it is completely random??? If anything, aren't I showing here that scores have a HUGE predictive ability of your chances at acceptance. If anything I'm also showing that if you have those stats I stated originally, you stand an EXCELLENT chance at winning?</p>

<p>The key here is to recognize and accept that there is a correlation between SAT scores and acceptance rate. In fact we found this rate to be ~40% for HYPM and if you score in the 99th percentile. Anyway, look at my other thread as I mentioned. THere's nothing wrong with my assumptions I believe.</p>

<p>Edit:</p>

<p>Example, imagine you KNEW that you had a 30% chance at winning the lottery. And furthermore, the conditions of winning the lotter was binary-- you either win or lose (as in you dont have to choose numbers and everything). If you buy 1 you have 30% chance of winning... but if you buy a LOT of tickets... (and for every ticket you stand a 30% cahnce of winning), it's unlikely that you will LOSE EVERY TIME. To lose every time would be defying the law of probability.</p>

<p>I think it is sad to apply to all the Ivies... it is a blatant manifestation of only caring about status. Two to three, even four I understand. But come on now...</p>

<p>


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<p>I respectfully disagree and think that there is a lot wrong with your assumptions. I hardly know where to begin in listing all that is wrong with them, but perhaps I should begin with the idea that a marginal candidate with high scores and high grades is a marginal candidate EVERYWHERE--in other words, even admission committees acting "independently" in the real-world sense and in the statistical sense could well agree on rejecting that applicant. </p>

<p>Perhaps I should post links to this thread on the AP statistics teachers email list.</p>

<p>You know people only care about the Ivy Brand name when they come up with combinations like "Columbia and Brown". The two couldn't be any more different from each other.</p>

<p>I couldn't agree more. The only thing that connects them is academic prowess and a sports league... they SHOULD attract totally different people. I applied to Yale and will apply to Brown if I don't get in. A more likely duo</p>