<p>Hahah if this was sent to my AP Stats teacher it would make his year. He doesn't get out much.</p>
<p>you can link this thread to any AP stats email list you want and no competent teacher will object to the argument.</p>
<p>every scientist must make assumptions- like a physicist ignoring air resistance.</p>
<p>the only assumption is that:
1. colleges act independently (which is clearly a fair assumption)</p>
<p>if you make a good estimate as to the probability of getting into each school, you can multiply.</p>
<p>given reasonable assumptions (there is only one, which is reasonable), and accurate input data (the odds of getting into each college), the math will never lie. if you don't believe in math... then.... i don't know what to say to you.</p>
<p>Hahah I believe in God... all others must bring data!</p>
<p>i second token
if you don't have a good chance to get into an ivy, you don't have a good shot in other ivies as well.
i just can't see a mediocre applicant who has a 10% shot at an ivy can achieve a probability of 57% just by applying to 8 ivies. yes, applying to more schools does help, but not that much.
if you are mediocre, you are mediocre everywhere (within ivies at least)</p>
<p>waste-o dinero.... apps are expensive!</p>
<p>"math will never lie..."
that's a bold statement</p>
<p>JJJ for the last time, we're not assuming an "average"
But even if oyu are calculating that way, a truly sucky applicant would have 0% at any of those.
If you dont believe in the math, you dont believe in statistics. And if you dont believe that... well where does that leave you?</p>
<p>Do you realize that right now in the world, there are people in Insurance companies calculating the chances you will drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow? Or that how much they should charge you extra because of the statistic that RED cars are more likely to crash than silver ones? How do you think Insurance companies assess risk? PROBABILITY. And let's just say if "stats" lied, I'm pretty sure they'd be out of business and not making a profit (which in the long run they would exit the market-- a bit of macroecon ;))</p>
<p>i guess we shall see the results in april.</p>
<p>Post #42, with which I disagree, helped me understand the biggest unstated assumption here. That is the assumption that all applicants in the specified range of numerical admission credentials are interchangeable. Several of the students posting replies here clearly understand that that assumption is both false and dangerous to applicants. No, distinct individuals have their own INDIVIDUAL probability of admission with respect to each college. If each applicant's character references, essays, or other admission factors are lousy, he can get lousy admission results from every college he applies to, even while possessing test scores and grades equalling or excelling those of other students who are admitted. We hear these sad stories most years on CC, stories of students who were sure they were in somewhere and ended up being admitted to NONE of the colleges to which they applied. </p>
<p>P.S. I know a lot of math. My son knows more (he's a four-time AIME qualifier). I know that when you use math to reason about the real world, you have to make sure your factual assumptions are correct, or good math can lead you to wrong results. (But I also think there is a math problem here, and I invite other math-minded students to look into that.) Statistics is the science of data </p>
<p><a href="http://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDF%5B/url%5D">http://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDF</a> </p>
<p>and there are many mathematically trained people who make grave errors in statistical reasoning because they don't keep their eye on what the data say.</p>
<p>Token... does it ever happen that people are amazed (no false modesty) that they got into a top school? Please say yes...</p>
<p>alright guys drop it. what is the point of arguing about this. we know we are all applying to all the ivies :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
does it ever happen that people are amazed (no false modesty) that they got into a top school?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes. This is the fourth admission season I have been posting on CC, and this happens every year.</p>
<p>AHA!! Thank you... I needed to hear that. Especially because it's out of my hands for now.</p>
<p>Token you are correct. Obviously it's on an individual basis. But clearly, there is some correlation between SAT scores and chances at admission. An unstated, but reasonable assertion is that for the average applicant scoring in the 2300's (which from experience I can tell you is indicative of truly caring about the test and preparing on top of smarts) he/she will have correspondingly strong GPA/Reccs/Essays. Why would someone dump months of study into the SAT just to write their College Essays overnight? Furthermore, it's no secret that the people who score the best tend to get the best prep (i.e prep school) which also makes it likely they have outside help helping them with essay writing and such. Such a student is also unlikely to be such a dispicable person that teachers will hate them and write them a bad recc. (on that note... reccs actually matter very little). </p>
<p>Is this a fool-proof if you get a 2300 ur getting in? Well actually, assuming you don't mess yourself up in one of the other fiends (they don't have to be BRILLIANT, but they have to be good which by Ivy standards is already on the low end), you stand an excellent chance at admissions.</p>
<p>Anyway, this was interesting. But now I must do my Frontiers of Science hw =).</p>
<p>Also to remember is that this is on AVERAGE.</p>
<p>Let me try to restate something that tokenadult was saying (I think): Saying that 30% of people with a given SAT score are admitted is not the same as saying that EACH of those people had a 30% chance of being admitted. The college does not randomly choose 30% of the people in that pool. Rather, they (supposedly) apply a set of criteria to choose who to accept. If those criteria are similar across the schools, then it is obvious that some of the people in the pool will have higher chances at all the schools at others. If, on the other hand, the criteria differ from school to school, then it will appear more random. There clearly is some difference, because we hear on CC and elsewhere of people who got into some Ivies and not others, and often their mirror images. This creates some apparent "randomness," at least among highly-qualified candidates.</p>
<p>I think the primary problem here is what stats would stay (college decisions are independent of one another, which is true), and then common sense- different kids "fit" at different colleges, and an applicant attracive to Harvard is likely to be equally attractive to Princeton, etc. In a purely statistical and hypothetical world, truazn's situation may well be the case. In real life, it's not.</p>
<p>stop arguing about this. sure, ducktape and many other people on here are right that it's not perfect. but it makes a point is all. many people have a better chance than they think</p>
<p>I think this thread can be summed up in a few points:</p>
<p>1) A student sporting really high stats (as outlined by the OP) has a good chance at getting into any specific school.
2) If that kid were to apply to many top schools, his chances at being rejected at all are very low, unless the student experienced a drop in grades, had bad essays, or recs, etc.
3) Thus, Ivy league admissions difficulty is exaggerated only for the truly top students.</p>