Lottery metaphor exaggerates situation

Parent Cafe
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<p>well, then this is not the same as supposing they are looking to fill vacant seats in the brass section, and if you can play that 'bone, the rainbow appears over your application. Which means they are fitting kids into their existing structure. Or are they getting wowed by a kid and then trusting their school to complete the embrace? These seem like different approaches and will lead many to the shotput pit who might have preferred the common violin. </p>

<p>Many with a rejection letter will wonder was it something essential I lacked or something incidental? That is the distinction reflected in these two interpretations of admission measures. In one case, it is chance(what breed of dog they needed to produce a great show and whether you are that shape dog) and in the other, whether you possess the quality that makes any dog a great dog: loyalty, determination and the endless fascination with the behinds of other dogs.</p>

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Or are they getting wowed by a kid and then trusting their school to complete the embrace? These seem like different approaches and will lead many to the shotput pit who might have preferred the common violin.

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<p>The problem with this approach is that by the time you're good enough to be impressive, the need is gone. Even colleges can't really predict how many shotputters they will need several years down the road. </p>

<p>Anyway, S1 decided to stick with his piano despite the touted advantages of playing the oboe. </p>

<p>The random quality of admissions is best seen in the case of students who are admitted at some schools and rejected at others of comparable levels of selectivity and very similar in profile. For example, how to explain that a student got admitted to Yale but not Harvard or vice-versa? It happens all the time. In such cases, there is no point asking oneself how one could have done a better job of the application, assuming that the same was submitted to H and Y.</p>

<p>This gets us back to the proposition that while admissions can easily be explained, rejections are harder to fathom, unless the applicant over-reached or applied at random.</p>

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The problem with this approach is that by the time you're good enough to be impressive, the need is gone.

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The idea isn't to develop a talent in order to impress a school so that you can get in... the idea is to pursue one's own passions and to take stock of oneself -- the student needs to figure out what they've got that others don't, flaunt it, and try to make sure it's being flaunted before an appreciative audience. And that is either going to be a school that really appreciates what the student has, or else one that really needs what the student has (or both). </p>

<p>I guess if you can't get to that point, maybe it is a lottery. </p>

<p>Someone a long time ago posted that the admissions strategy ought to involve a label of two adjectives that will tend to describe the applicant -- that is, two impressive or unusual or intriguing qualities that will make the application memorable. Two words or phrases that everyone on the ad com who has read the file will instantly connect to the applicant. </p>

<p>Whether that gets a given student admitted depends on circumstances. The bassoonist with the B average may not be Harvard material no matter how much the school needs a bassoon. But the bassoonist has an edge simply because some colleges need bassoonists -- and it makes sense to figure out which colleges those are.</p>

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<p>How about kids who are admitted to more selective schools & denied & less selectives? Son's buddy was admitted to UPenn (ivy) but denied at USoCal (non-ivy). Another kid on the USC board was admitted to Harvard but denied at USC as well. Hard to understand for me, probably much harder for the kids & families!</p>

<p>My son was admitted at USC with merit aid but denied at Rice, which has a much higher % of out-of-state students admitted with lower stats than his. (He didn't really care, but I was surprised, as was his GC.) Maybe because he's not a bassoonist?</p>

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<p>Two possibilities: 1. Tufts syndrome; 2. whatever distinctive profile the applicant offered, whether achieved through genuine passion or cultivated to impress adcoms, did not match what the particular school was looking for. And, pace Quiltguru and Calmom, that is not always easy to divine.</p>

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<p>My daughter had the same experience... accepted at Barnard, NYU, Chicago, waitlisted at Boston U. </p>

<p>But one thing that I noticed is that she put her heart & soul into the Barnard/NYU/Chicago apps. Her g.c. had told her that she could be pretty sure of admissions into BU-- and the application that she sent really was generic in the sense that it had the basic stuff she included in all her apps, but no extra. Same with Brandeis, which also waitlisted her. </p>

<p>Now partly that is because there was more room to customize the other apps -- Barnard & Chicago both welcome supplemental materials, and NYU/Gallatin asks for a fairly detailed exposition on reasons for choosing the school. I think she just used online apps for Brandeis & BU. </p>

<p>So I think one big mistake that students may be making now is underestimating the increasing selectivity of the schools they see as matches or match/safeties, coupled with underestimating the need to provide those schools with evidence that the student they admit is likely to attend. You can't get away with the same application for every school -- because I guess if USC is reviewing an application and thinks, "this kid sounds like someone who really wants to go to Harvard and probably will"... they might pass. </p>

<p>In other words, our kids are taking their safeties & matches for granted, and those schools can tell. For the true safeties it doesn't matter - but for the "match" schools it is probably extremely important that the student seems genuinely interested in attending that school.</p>

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<p>Ah, statistics.... A quick diversion with my favorite simple problem: In my child's high school (1000 students), 5% of the students are drug users and 95% are not. The test for usage is 90% accurate. If my child were chosen at random for a drug test and tested POSITIVE, should I be immediately upset? What is the chance that my child is a user?</p>

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But your post illustrates the whole fallacy of the lottery argument. If you can't answer the question, "what does this kid have that 90% of the other kids don't", then the kid is not going to get in at any "low odds" school no matter how many applications are tossed out.

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I'll make one more comment and then bow out ... I respectfully disagree with your logic ... if what you said is true then a subset of great kids (but not uber kids) would get into virtually all the low odds schools they apply to because they have that special thing that sets them apart while a different set of great kids would get virtually shut out at low odds schools because they do not have that special thing. </p>

<p>That is far from the experience of the kids and families I know. Few kids get into schools above where they expected to get in ... however in the set of schools where they are solid but not amazing candidates each kid has some hits and misses ... if they have that special thing for school #1 than why didn't they get into school #2 because of that same special thing? ... because both schools made thoughtful decisions that we are not privy to. Most families I know seem to have about 1/4 to 1/3 acceptence rates at elite schools ... how come all these kids get into some schools but only the minority of the schools they apply to ... I believe it is because they are solid candidates and some of those schools (which they could not predict) do find their application special in some way. </p>

<p>(PS - you are correct if someone applies to more schools they will get more rejections ... it's also true that the odds of getting at least one acceptance go up if they apply where their application is solid)</p>

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<p>That is why we lumped matches and safeties together for the purpose of deciding how many applications were enough. I believe very strongly, as Calmom's daughter illustrates, that there is a law of diminishing returns, there is a number of applications for an individual that is the most that child can do well - beyond that they all sound the same, I think it has a lot to do with the kid's desire and ability to differentiate among their choices. Also, I think it is pretty natural for the kid to "dash off" the safety application - after all it is a safety. That is why I'm a big proponent of trying to find a rolling admission, by the numbers school that doesn't require any sort of personal statement. Once that school is in the bag, it is easy for most kids to find one or 2 more selective safeties and spend time showing interest and crafting a good application for those schools. If maximum merit aid is not an issue, then that strategy will work well for most high stat students.</p>

<p>The lottery myth most hurts the students with the least real chance - OK, so your parents can afford the $60, and you have 5 Bs and 1550 SATs, send that app into Harvard, you have nothing to lose but $60. But, what about the kid who thinks that 20 apps significantly improve his odds over 8 or 10? Can you really think that it will? How much does that cost? 3togo is right to some extent, I believe, the strong student who adds 2 well done apps to a list of 8 - 3 safeties, 5 match/reaches going to 3 safeties and 7 match/reaches - probably has decreased the likelihood of striking out with the match/reaches and improved the possiblity of having a choice. You just absolutely cannot predict for any one school, just for the group, AND you cannot reduce the chance to striking out to 0, you can just make the risk acceptably low.</p>

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<p>Cangel, I agree with much of what you say but want to point out that it's not universally applicable. For some students, there simply wasn't a rolling admissions Safety. My D's criteria were very particular to her and very reasonable, I thought. No rolling admissions safety that she would have attended fit the profile. As it was, I was sweating the "regular" Safety had push come to shove. </p>

<p>As it turns out, she's attending what was a Safety-Match. I was told by a former admissions officer that she would pirouette in, not to worry, but in my CC-fueled paranoia, I did not believe her until the nod-and-wink letter from the admissions office was in hand.</p>

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<p>"But, what about the kid who thinks that 20 apps significantly improve his odds over 8 or 10?"</p>

<p>Believe it or not, and as strange as it may seem, the answer (for a "qualified Ivy applicant") is an unequivocal "yes", it does improve his odds. Don't jump on me, but the Ivy-wide acceptance rate is between 40-50%, roughly the same as one of the better state universities. It is 8%-10% at each school, but the 23,000+ acceptances come from probably no more than 50,000-60,000 discrete applicants. As more applicants are rejected ED, the number of total applications goes up, without any increase in the number of applicants. The result is that the chances of getting into any particular Ivy school goes down, but the chances of getting into one of the schools remains exactly the same.</p>

<p>BUT (big but), more than 50% of students accepted at Ivy schools require no financial aid. There is a huge competition among the Ivies for students who can pay full-fare. The chances of non-full-fare customers getting in are much, much lower (which is why they won't publish them - it would be like killing the goose that lays the golden egg.)</p>

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<p>TheDad - yes, I agree, rolling admits may not fit everyone - my D had 2 rolling admit safeties, and one would have been OK, the other, a big state school, was purely to guard against catastrophic personal or financial problems. For the juniors out there, a few rolling admit LACs do exist, as well as a few that have a form of early or immediate action on an app, which does not exclude students from applying to other schools - maybe us LAC lovers should start a list of these.</p>

<p>Students in certain areas of the country, particularly the NE, are certainly hampered by this - there are fewer excellent public rolling admit schools, and when you eliminate the large number of students who want to stay close to home (naturally) or limit their geographic search, I know it becomes hard to find a rolling safety. Is it that way in Cal, too?
You don't need a rolling admit to use a guesstimation strategy to reach a reasonable number of apps, but it just takes the biggest part of the stress away earlier.</p>

<p>Mini, I actually agree with you, although I'd put the Ivy wide number down around 40-45%, and where does that 50% of ACCEPTED students are full fare come from? Matriculated maybe, but I doubt accepted is that high. I just think using 20 apps is better than 10 is a dangerous strategy for an individual student, even if it may have some statistical validity. I just truly feel that good, solid academic candidates without international level hooks, will do well with a list of 8-10 carefully chosen schools and well written applications/thoughtfully chosen recommenders. There must be flexibility on the part of the applicant, though - if she is from an over represented area, throw in a few more, if he is HYPS or bust, apply to all 4, then start counting 8-10, need lots of merit aid, add a few more schools.</p>

<p>Another scenario that doesn't get much press here because of the hype over getting into the most prestigious/strenuous/academic/best known/Ivy school possible is this - how often do you think a marginal kid applies to 15-20 schools, slips into their last one by the skin of their teeth, and is miserable - over their hear academically, etc?</p>

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<p>"Mini, I actually agree with you, although I'd put the Ivy wide number down around 40-45%, and where does that 50% of ACCEPTED students are full fare come from?"</p>

<p>You are correct - it is "attending" students. HOWEVER, it should be note that the cross-ivy yield rate is in the 85-90% range (figured by subtracting from the number of INDIVIDUALS actually accepted cross-ivy the number who actually attend.</p>

<p>The battle to get those full-fare customers to matriculate is fierce.</p>

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<p>That is the "luck" portion of the admissions process. "Special" is in the eye of the beholder (admissions committee)--what is not so special for one college may be seen as very special by another, depending on institutional needs that application season. How else to explain how the same student can get into H and not Y or P (for example) with basically the same application?</p>

<p>Of course, some specialness can be valued equally by all colleges--these students get in at all of their highly selective schools. But I see this a lot less than a student who will get into some, but not all, of his or her highly selective schools.</p>

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<p>one final thought ... I do agree with the thought that BY FAR the best chance to get into any school is if the student has produced a killer application specific to that school ... and the trick is how many killer apps can one student produce.</p>

<p>Taking this thought and my believe in the lottery aspect of the process to the extreme with my daughter who absolutely thrives in tougher and tougher academic settings (not true yet of my other kids) I'd might suggest this ... in year one she apply to a couple matches she loves and also spend her time on creating a bunch (8-10) of killer apps for reach schools (she'll meet the standards but be in the big hopper with everyone else). If that strikes out take a gap year (and I know she'd do something useful) and then year two take a more traditional safety, match, reach approach. </p>

<p>The more I read CC the more I dislike only taking 2-3 cracks at reach schools for those who thrive when thrown in with more (a higher percentage of) hi level students.</p>

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First of all, we see those subsets all the time -- there is a kid at my daughter's high school who was accepted at almost all elites that he applied to, including at least 4 Ivies or Ivy-equivalents; there was a kid this year from Texas who posts here who got into all 8 Ivies,to the consternation of many parents; and on our master list of acceptances ror this year we have reports of multiple Ivy or equivalent acceptances from californiakid, finale, Yomama, and NCEph. So basically over the years I have seen plenty of kids who get into all or nearly all of the super-reach schools that they apply to. And there are far more who get rejected from all -- I honestly can't count the number of kids over the years I have seen go that route. </p>

<p>Secondly, the whole point I am making is that all the schools are different, and each are looking for different qualities. That was Quiltguru's point: you have to do the research & inquiry to figure out whether or not Yale is going to be looking for cellists this year. A two-way fit is important too -- I find it hard to believe that many kids would be equally suited to Brown and to Columbia. So your whole point ignores the fact that Dartmouth may be looking for something entirely different than Yale in a given year -- the fact that a student can be accepted by Harvard but rejected by Princeton is as much evidence that the colleges are looking for different qualities as it can br used to justify the lottery view.</p>

<p>Finally, I never said that you can increase the odds to 100%. If a student targets 4 extremely selective schools and crafts his applications perfectly, playing on whatever hooks he's got, so as to increase odds of admission at each school to 70% ... there is still a 30% chance of being rejected at each.<br>
Plus, the whole process is individualized -- not everyone is going to be able to build on their credentials to increase the odds to that level. But that's a lot better than 10% odds of admission.</p>

<p>Bottom line - statistically, if you go in with less than 50% odds of being admitted, chances are you will be rejected. The more schools you apply to, the greater the chances of rejection - because the odds favor rejection. </p>

<p>What you do by taking a lottery approach is put the kid in competion with other kids who have better odds of admission. Intead of working to increase odds at college A, you are leaving the odds at colleges A-G the same -- and at each school the competition involves kids who are focused narrowly and have thus have better odds of getting in. I don't see how the student who applies to 8 schools and wins admission to 2 has done better than the student who applies to 4 schools and is admitted to 3. I am sure that the first student will rationalize that it's all a lottery, and feel proud of the choice to apply to so many, and assume that the second student just got lucky. </p>

<p>But have you ever noticed how some kids just seem to have all the luck?</p>

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<p>The odds favor rejection at each indvidual school, but if you apply to enough schools you can get to a reasonable chance of getting into ONE of them.</p>

<p>If you wish to speak statistically, consider 20 schools in which the odds of admission for a given student in each case are 25%. If these truly are the odds and he applies to say only 2 of the 20 schools, there is a pretty decent chance that he will be rejected by both and thus get into none of them. But if he applies to all 20 schools, the odds indicate he will likely be accepted by ~5 of them. That's what 25% chance means.</p>

<p>So the kid in this case will certainly pile up a lot of rejections, but he will also likely get into several of these low odds schools.</p>

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<p>you can't talk about college admission as if it is the same as flipping a coin. keep flipping a coin, eventually it should come up heads. keep applying to selective school does NOT mean eventually one will admit you.</p>

<p>you can't say its an X% chance and treat this as purely a statisical issue. there are unknown variable at play - and they vary with each applicant and with each school.</p>

<p>if anything it is this type of thought process that has led to the explosion in applicaiton numbers - which in turn are making admission even more selective.</p>

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The odds favor rejection at each indvidual school, but if you apply to enough schools you can get to a reasonable chance of getting into ONE of them.

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No, because it is not a random process. And if the same basic application is used for each school, then the same flaws in the application may torpedo chances for each school. Of course the student is not aware of the flaws -- perhaps a recommendation letter that damns with faint praise, perhaps an essay that falls flat -- but the point is that it is a very subjective determination. And the more applications the student makes, the harder it is to focus genuine, individualized effort on each.</p>

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if anything it is this type of thought process that has led to the explosion in applicaiton numbers - which in turn are making admission even more selective.

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I'd argue that for the most part, that the kids who are throwing out multiple applications with the idea of increasing odds are also the ones with the slimmest chances at the schools they apply to; on the other end of the spectrum are the ED kids, who of course have the greatest chances of admission. But a kid doesn't have to be an ED applicant in order to create an edge that comes with a high level of interest in a particular school. That stuff shows through in many different ways. </p>

<p>I also wonder what kids expect their high school guidance counselors to do. Do they really believe that they are going to get the same level of support for an application when they apply to 20 schools as their classmates who are only applying to a few? The GC has the power to TELL the college, in no uncertain terms, when a student is strongly interested in one -- and I think that gc's and teachers will be motivated to really go to bat for the student who tells them her heart is set on Princeton than the one who is tossing off applications to a dozen different elites. It's not that they say anything negative about the kid with the scattershot approach - but the multiple-application approach is going to hurt when it comes to assembling all the supporting documents. The more generic the g.c. rec is, the less likely it is to convince.</p>