<p>Can anybody weigh in one what seems to be considered quite "rigorous" by Harvard/other Ivy standards?
Of course we have all heard statements like "students should take the most challenging classes that are best for them"</p>
<p>But seriously. ;)
While it is understood that each student will be judged based on the opportunities available to him, it is still the case that the vast majority of applicants are in similar sounding situations. Within the context of Ivy Admissions, most applicants (no matter how impressive) must be considered as Ivy Average student with Ivy Average opportunities. As such, there must exist a profile considered to be Ivy League Standard for a general applicant.</p>
<p>I would assume that this Ivy Average student has a variety of AP courses available at his or her school, and has done quite well in most of them. Is this enough though?
What if the student has taken only a few APs but scored highly on all?
What if the student has an entire year of community college already under his belt?
Multivariable calculus?
Specific major-oriented electives?</p>
^^ That’s correct, so course rigor actually varies from school-to-school. FWIW: My daughter and son’s transcripts looked pretty much the same. Below are my daughter’s courses and the grades received. </p>
<p>REQUIRED ART - 95<br>
FRES COMP - 95<br>
FR COMP 2 - 96<br>
EUR LIT - 96<br>
EUR LIT - 97<br>
ENG5AP MORAL IDENT - 97<br>
ENG6AP MORAL IDENT - 97<br>
ENGAP7 GREAT BOOKS - 96<br>
ENGAP8 GREAT BOOKS - 95<br>
GERMAN 1 - 99<br>
GERMAN 2 - 99<br>
SPAN YR 1- 100<br>
SPANISH II TERM 1 - 98<br>
SPANISH II TERM 2 - 99<br>
SPANISH III TERM 1 - 99
SPANISH III TERM 2 - 99
AP SPAN 1 - 98<br>
AP SPAN 2 - 100
GLB HIST 1 -97<br>
GLB HIST2- 100<br>
EURHIST1AP- 99<br>
EURHIST2AP - 98<br>
US HST AP1- 100<br>
US HST AP2- 100<br>
PART GVTAP- 97<br>
ECONOMICS - 95<br>
AP COMPGVT - 96<br>
CALC APBC1 -95<br>
CALC APBC2 - 99
INTCOMPSCI - 98
INTRO TO STATISTICS - 100<br>
PROBSLV 1 - P
PROBSLV 2 - P<br>
PRECALHON1 - 95
PRECALHON2 - 98<br>
MATH 3 - 99
MATH 4 - 100<br>
SEQ M HON5 - 96
SEQ M HON6 - 99<br>
PE FR CY A - 95
PE FR CY A - 98
PE SO CY A - 90
PE SO CY A - 90
SENIOR DANCE - 100<br>
JR AEROB - 98<br>
HEALTH - 98
JR VOLLEYBALL - 95<br>
LIV ENVRN1- 99<br>
LIV ENVRN2 - 96<br>
LIVEN1 LAB - P
LIVEN2 LAB - P
BIOLOGY 3 AP - 95
BIOLOGY 4 AP - 99<br>
ZOO LABVER - 94<br>
CHEMISTRY TERM 1- 100<br>
CHEMISTRY TERM 2 - 99<br>
REGCHM1LAB - P
REGCHM2LAB - P
PHYSICS TERM 1 - 94
PHYSICS LAB 1 - P
PHYSICS TERM 2 - 93<br>
PHYSICS LAB 2 - P
TECHGPHCOM - 97
VIDEO PRODUCTION - 100
CHAM CHOIR- 97<br>
CHAM CHOIR - 97
CHAM CHOIR - 98<br>
CHAM CHOIR - 98<br>
CHAMBER CHOIR - 99<br>
CHAMBER CHOIR - 99<br>
CHAMBER CHOIR- 100<br>
CHAMBER CHOIR - 100 </p>
<p>Keep in mind that my daughter was rejected from Yale, waitlisted at Princeton and accepted to Harvard. So, even with those kinds of grades from that kind of HS, it’s still a crap shoot!</p>
<p>@Gibby
Thank you for that detailed list. I found it very interesting. Were some or most of your daughter’s classes dual credit? It certainly looks that way.</p>
<p>@musicmerit
I did not know this. Do you think Ivy Admissions take the guidance counselors at their word, thereby eliminating some of the subjective nature of evaluating the “rigor” of a transcript?</p>
<p>This is a school report. It helps the school see how you compare to others at your school. You should be at the top of your class if you want to go to a highly selective university. Yes, they will take your counselor’s word for that.</p>
<p>I’m homeschooled, so I’m asking purely out of curiosity. Many of my (public school) friends have elevated the Ivy’ League to an almost Olympian status. All of my friends who are applying to selective Universities have similar stats.</p>
<p>Judging from the limited sample group I have available to me, I would say the following looks like an Ivy Average:</p>
<p>SAT I: 2100-2300
SAT II: 700-800
GPA: 3.80+</p>
<p>Since everybody has these same stats, let us assume for the vast majority of us these do not help/hinder us in any substantial way.
Therefore, let us move on to the “rigor” of the curriculum.</p>
<p>I would also suppose that the following is a typical Ivy Rigor:</p>
<p>Advanced Classes Taken: Most or all available at school (On average, 10+ classes)
Specifically looked at classes: Calculus, degree-specific electives (like Econ or Journalism), ideally an absence of “fluff” classes</p>
<p>Again, I would hazard the guess that a large potion of the Ivy Applicant pool has Stats that are at least comparable to these.</p>
<p>Using Harvard as an example; Harvard takes about 6 people for every 100 who apply.</p>
<p>How many people will have been weeded out by these objective (and I would assume, preliminary) measurements? Are there 50 people left to consider? 20?</p>
<p>Ignore possible exceptions and outliers, (I.E. performing at Carnegie Hall) as although these people are welcomed at Harvard, so are far more people without such impressive ECs.</p>
<p>this quote tells me how unsophisticated you and your friends are…this athletic league as a “whole” does not set the standard any more and it never has…there are a few schools from other conferences and a “few” schools from this league that may be leading the way in this century…</p>
<p>…and it seems like the more sophisticated students/parents already know this…</p>
<p>Based on the above, about 61,000 students last year scored a 2100+ on the SAT. (And that doesn’t include students that just took the ACT.) It’s really anyone’s guess how many of them also had 3.8+ GPA’s, top SAT II scores and applied to Harvard. </p>
@Gibby
Very interesting. Probably most of them, I would assume…
If only the colleges would allow some of these statistics to be made public, it could make for some very interesting analysis.</p>
<p>
@gravitas2
I apologize if I offended you in any way, but I would like to point out how unnecessarily antagonistic your post is. For example, I stated exactly</p>
<p>
That you then chose to respond to this rather innocuous statement by grouping me in with my friends and insulting the lot of us suggests that perhaps there are some other emotions at play here that do not relate to my post.</p>
<p>Judging from some of your threads, it appears that you harbor some resentment against the Ivy’s.
I would agree with you that some of the lower tier members of the Ivy League (what I call the non-WHYP Ivy’s) are entirely comparable and indeed beatable by schools such as Stanford, MIT, Chicago.</p>
<p>Posting in the Harvard forum however, I think it would have been safe to presume I was talking in a general manner about the more selective Ivy’s.</p>
<p>@etiquetteofwar If you mean “WHYP”, say so. “Ivy League” is a term with a precise definition and you are the only person to blame for your misuse of it. Incidentally, you don’t need an apostrophe to pluralize.</p>
<p>Notice that Gibby’s daughter had no B’s. It’s impressive for the range of academics she covered, it’s a workout and solid prep. Guessing she wasn’t thinking stem?</p>
<p>Considering the competition, no, not good enough tot take a few of what’s available, even with good grades and scores. Comm Coll- well, lots of kids have lots of DE. Depends. What impresses? Stretch with accomplishment. Academics and in activities. Think about what stretch means. But there is no one formula and much depends on how you present yourself- that’s partly the record and partly the writing. All imo. No guarantees.</p>
<p>Some will say, yeah but I know someone who got B’s and didn’t do whatever. </p>
<p>@catisforfite hit it right on the head…@EtiquetteOfWar: full disclosure K1 attends your lettered ivy and K2 attends school out west. When you come to the Harvard thread…please ask about Harvard…not about the ivy athletic league. H does not equal nor represent ALL of the ivy league schools…they are all different (all eight of them)…they each have their strengths and weaknesses…culture…urban vs non-urban…small vs large…etc…and not all ivy league schools are created equal…and that’s OK…because some will be happier at Brown rather than at Princeton…and some will he happier at Cornell than Yale…one size does not fit all! </p>
<p>Whenever I see a chance thread or any thread that asks about getting into the “ivy league” I don’t even bother to read them because I assume the individual did not do any common sense research…but, I will at least read the ones that specifically ask about certain individual/combination of schools that was well thought out…</p>
<p>…so if you are going to ask general “ivy league” related questions please ask in the general thread…</p>
<p>While I would respectfully repeat my claim that you are overly and unnecessarily antagonistic, I do recognize that the general Ivy League forum would have been the place to post this question. Unfortunately, and for reasons unknown to me, I could not post any threads in that forum. After some deliberation, I thought the Harvard thread would be the next best place to ask this question.</p>
<p>My original intention with this thread was to create an open dialogue where informed posters could exchange their ideas of what an Ivy Average Applicant’s profile looked like. While there is definitely a general idea among the community (high scores, good grades, etc…) I have never seen somebody attempt to actually create a sample Ivy League application. I believe this would be especially useful to those who create a preponderance of “chance me” threads without knowing the general stats of the applicants they’re competing against.</p>
<p>What are people’s thoughts on how we should fill out this form for an Ivy Average Applicant?</p>
<p>For example, I would guess the applicant would look something like this:</p>
<p>Ivy Average Applicant</p>
<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (breakdown): 2100-2300
[</em>] ACT: 31-33
[<em>] SAT II: 700+
[</em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.8+
[<em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Top 5%
[</em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): 10+ with 4s or better
[<em>] Senior Year Course Load: Calculus (either AP/BC or further)
[</em>] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Perhaps one or two national awards
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[<em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): One or two strong extracurriculars with lots of focus and participation, with a scattering of other less impressive ones
[</em>] Job/Work Experience: A part time job or two, but unlikely to have had a full time job
[<em>] Volunteer/Community service: 100+ hours
[</em>] Summer Activities:
[<em>] Essays: Strong, but unlikely to stand out (remember, this is an Average applicant)
[</em>] Teacher Recommendation: Positive/Glowing
[<em>] Counselor Rec: Positive
[</em>] Additional Rec: Positive/Glowing
[li] Interview: Interviewer will write a mildly positive report</p>[/li]
<pre><code>[/ul]Other[list]
[li] School Type:[/li][li] Income Bracket:[/li][li] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.):[/li]</code></pre>
The problem with your original intention (and this thread) is that you’re making the assumption that all Ivy League schools are looking for the same qualities in an applicant – and they are not. Brown, for example, looks for distinct and different qualities than Columbia – and they have to, because each school’s curriculum and educational philosophy is vastly different. Beyond high scores, good grades, etc, each school seeks students who would be a “match” for their approach – and they know that a student who would be a “good fit” for Brown would be miserable on Columbia’s campus and vice-versa. If you take the time to investigate each Ivy League school, you will see those differences (Brown’s open curriculum, Columbia’s core, Harvard’s general education, etc) and understand that although all Ivy League schools play in the same athletic conference, there isn’t going to be an average applicant’s profile. </p>