<p>I agree with quiltguru, and with the premise of this thread. It is a competition for limited spots, not a lottery. While a certain percentage of students are rejected for being clearly not up to standard, the majority of students who don't get in aren't rejected: the simply don't make the cut to be chosen. They are edged out by other competitors for a variety of reasons: it may be a hook, it may be some sort of stand out quality, it may just be a matter of timing or the juxtaposition of one application with another. </p>
<p>I think the problem with the lottery metaphor is that it encourages students to essentially use a randomized approach to admissions.... i.e., simply send apps to all the Ivies or all the top ranked LAC's without really focusing on trying to figure out what the college is looking for. The more you know about what a particular school is looking for, the better the odds of getting in -- assuming that the threshold qualifications are met. The information you get isn't perfect; but the point is that you can do a lot to improve chances.</p>
<p>Yes, you can do all the research and make the best choices you can. But, the unknown from year-to-year is the demographics of the applicant pool - how many are applying, the stats and talents of those who are applying. Taking the Middlebury example and a low admission rate from New Mexico in the prior year. The next year, they might receive a ton of applications from New Mexico, so even though you did the appropriate research and applied accordingly, you may find yourself in a very competitive situation.</p>
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first chair bassoonist ... or stories about "building up" department
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<p>guiltguru,</p>
<p>You mean my D won her lottery because her instrument is the often maligned viola and her school is building up their department in her proposed major (chem)? (Both true)</p>
<p>Certainly not just because she is a viola player and a much sought after female chemistry major, beprepn. She's assuredly a brilliant, top-ranked student at her school and in her state, a good speller, and a bathing beauty, too (If you haven't already, you must see "25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee). But of the 10 brilliant, top-ranked, bathing beauty spellers who applied to her college, maybe she is the one who will fill the void in the viola section and enhance gender diversity in the chemistry department!</p>
<p>Agree with Quiltguru.
And the next year, since the orchestra now has a terrific violist, another student with the exact same profile may be rejected (unless the chem department's gender balance is still out of kilter). But how is that student to know?</p>
<p>Quiltguru's post is excellent up to a point. However, I know of one Classics department whose profs were fuming because the Admissions Office did not admit students they considered excellent candidates. I got an earful about the lip service paid by the powers-that-be at that school to the humanities while it continued to admit students making a bee line to Wall Street. Had I been a prospective student, I might drawn erroneous conclusions about the direction the school was taking. And if I had asked the profs, they probably would have encouraged me strongly to apply.
Similarly, I don't know if Summers' support for science and math has had an effect on admissions at Harvard, or whether there are more students interested in math/science careers to start with. At LACs, presidents probably have a more direct impact on admissions than at larger schools.</p>
<p>but lets not be too naive here about the amount of direct information the school will give you -- remember these are the same schools that are flooding people with post cards, e-mails and brochures encouraging loads of kids to apply. and the same schools whose admissions officers will announce that there are no cut-offs on sat's or gpa's so as encourage applications from students who are really unlikely to get in.</p>
<p>i knew a kid who thought their music ability would help them get in -- the mom told me how wonderful and encouraging the conductor was and what efforts he went to in order to meet with this kid and listen -- they left feeling very encouraged about the kid's chances -- i bet you can guess the admissions result. (let's just say this family was not happy).</p>
<p>schools know perfectly well that their public statements are being examined and i'm sure that they are very careful as to what they say. sometimes that rhetoric may be politically correct and designed to increase applicants - it doesn't always mean you can count on it to inform you of your chances. there were schools we visited where the official rhetoric at the info sessions simply did not mesh with the realities we heard about from students -- was this evidence of an intent to change? or just an attempt to change image?</p>
<p>The lottery metaphor may be inexact but it captures the fact that because the type of student that a university seeks from year to year varies, a student who might not be offered admission this year would have been offered admission the previous year or the following year. One admissions officer even admitted that the process is not perfectly reliable and that a student who might have been admitted if his or her application were reviewed the day before or the day after might be rejected simply because of the dynamics occurring within the admissions committee that day. A better metaphor might be the NFL draft. If you dont have the talent, you are not going to be the Number 1 pick in the draft. But depending on the position you play, you may have higher or lower value in a particular year to the teams that choose first.</p>
<p>Strategy will get you only so far. Yes, the orchestra may be graduating a bassoonist, but it may be that this is a year when there are other strong bassoonists applying. Also, the orchestra conductor will not likely get everyone who he asks for and he might need the flutist more than the bassoonist this year anyway and focus on that. On the other hand, if your strength is music and the President of the University announces an initiative to improve the performing arts at the school, that is something that you might take into consideration when deciding where to apply. </p>
<p>I like the lottery metaphor because some kids are devastated when they are rejected and the truth really is that they just might have applied in the wrong year to a particular school and are in all regards indistinguishable from those who were accepted.</p>
<p>I think you there is some confusion about the difference between increasing your chances through strategic planning, and a guarantee. No one is saying that the bassoonist who targets the school with a place for him in the orchestra is guaranteed entry -- its just that he is going to increase his chances if he makes a point of emphasizing his musical talent to the right school; at the same time, at another school it may be more important to emphasize his interest in studying classics. </p>
<p>Here's an analogy: If I go to Las Vegas and spend all my money playing slot machines, then I am leaving things entirely to chance. There simply is nothing I can do to influence what happens once I pull the lever on the machine.</p>
<p>However, if I go and sit down at a blackjack table, I can influence the outcome. Now we are no longer playing a game of random chance; we are playing a game of strategy and judgment with an element of chance. The more the person knows about the rules of the game and the odds, the more that person can increase the likelihood of winning. </p>
<p>That doesn't mean that the person is going to win every hand. If the cards in your hand add up to 12, odds are pretty good that you won't go over 21 on the next card - so most black jack players will accept another card. If you are then dealt a face card and lose ... it isn't because your system didn't work, it's because even when odds are in favor of winning, it is still possible to lose.</p>
<p>It's not like the powerball lottery where your chances are one in two hundred million. It's more like those car lotteries where they sell 1000 tickets at $100 a piece. So there are LOTTERIES and lotteries...</p>
<p>the orchestra is becoming as tiresome an analogy as the lottery if it is meant to be an analogy. Can admissioners care so deeply about the balance of talent in their pits when the attendance at the concerts that I have attended is often embarassingly sparce? How about third basemen as the new niche specialty?</p>
<p>Where do you live? I'm just back from a fabulous concert, played to a full house. Passing by Harvard Yard last week, I saw flyers for many concerts for the same evening, all by student orchestras. They do need those violinists, cellists, etc...</p>
<p>Here is what I would say. If you are in the top 25% of a schools SAT's and HS academics, then you are in as long as you have good everything else. The "mold the student body we want" only applies to the other 75%.</p>
<p>I.e., even if you are an Asian, male, violin player from NYC with two PhD parents and an upper middle class income. You will get into Columbia if you are in their upper 25% in tests and academics given no other flaws - i.e., bad recommendations.</p>
<p>With so many student orchestras, they might; I don't know. The one instrument they don't need more players for is the piano, and that's the instrument S1 played. One Ivy interviewer friend said he would have more of a chance if he played the oboe. He was not interested in applying to Ivies and got into several top LACs anyway.<br>
We have heard some of S2's friends in concerts--one is a violinist; others are in various choruses.
Someone I know swears she got into Radcliffe because they needed someone for the crew team.</p>
<p>We know a kid who got into MIT--ok, good test scores but not National Merit, not a Mathlete or other outstanding awards, but...he is a swimmer. He must have discipline & drive to be an athlete, but he's just not the student, on paper, <em>we</em> would have expected to get in. So you never know.</p>
<p>The lottery is a terrible metaphor, the process is not at all a lottery. It is more like a beauty contest where the selection criteria are randomly generated each year - it helps to be beautiful and talented and poised, but it is impossible to know if the brunettes have an edge over the blondes or if the baton twirlers are favored over the singers, and you never know when some less than absolutely gorgeous person is going to have so much charisma and presence that they overwhelm the competition.</p>
<p>I think estimating admission odds for top students can help in one situation - where you are trying to decide if you have submitted "enough" applications. Let's say that you are a top student, or really any level of student, looking at 10 reach/match schools and say 5 more safeties. You've researched these schools, perhaps visited, and feel that you could be happy and get a great education at any of them. Your goal is to get admitted to at least 2 of these reach/matches plus all safeties, in order to have a choice. You are also very aware of the fact that you can produce a better application for each school if you limit the number of applications that you submit - how to decide how many to do.
If you can identify a group of schools that you can estimate your chances as 50-50 or close to 50-50 for each, then you can calculate the likelihood of striking out (which will NEVER be 0 chance), and decide what number of schools you are comfortable applying to - 0.5X0.5X0.5...
This process works only if you are completely, brutally honest with yourself about your chances, and take into consideration all the random factors you can - including Quiltguru's ingenious advice about researching what areas of the school are being emphasized.
There will never be a 0% chance of striking out, because occasionally someone will be torpedoed at all their choices by something out of their control - maybe a bad recommendation that you didn't know existed, or a poor school profile, or, more likely, ignoring that brutal honesty part, and thinking that perhaps the admissions folks won't notice those 2 frosh Cs or that suspension in 10th grade.</p>
<p>This approach assumes that safeties are carefully chosen, and works best with a rolling admission in the bag - you can really begin being choosy with apps then. It also works with merit aid, but you have to be less limiting, rather than more limiting, and even more conservative about assessing your chances. It doesn't work with HYPSM very well, because it can be hard to say that anyone's chances for those schools is 50-50, although there are students for whom the chance is close to 100% - they just don't know who they are! But for most other schools, a solid student can come up with a list of 8-10 schools, where, depending on the breakdown between reach and match, they can be almost certain that there will be at least 2 reach/matches to pick from, plus most all the safeties - it does work, it just takes honesty and research.</p>
<p>To extend Cangel's metaphor, many students (and their parents) get so smitten with what they see in the mirror that they forget to check out the competition and forget that, to some extent, beauty is in they eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>I still think there's some random luck that percolates through the system. If the reader of admissions files reads one file when they're tired and half an hour after they've had a fight with their significant other and reads another file first thing in the morning after a good night's sleep and a good breakfast, you'd have to think they were robots not to figure that over time one set of files would get a better read than another. Karma.</p>