<p>Many threads on this website claim that applying to a bunch of elite schools "statistically" will not raise your chances of getting into one of them. I'm convinced that's the biggest baloney I've heard so far. </p>
<p>Of course applying to more schools raises your chances of getting in to one, especially for CCers - who aren't your average students. </p>
<p>Consider the fact that some students apply to H and Y. Only some get into either one of them. Most get rejected by both. But statistically, those who applied had an equal chance of getting into each one. And if they only got into one, imagine if they had only applied to one of those schools.</p>
<p>The point I'm trying to make is that if you apply to more schools, in theory, you're more likely to get into one of them, even if your stats aren't amazing. You still might get rejected by all the elite colleges, but MOST people do get rejected by them. </p>
<p>So go ahead, share your opinions, stories. As someone who applied to 20 schools, I am really interested in hearing what you have to say.</p>
<p>Since we are talking about statistics let me give you an example:</p>
<p>It is just like flipping a coin. No matter how many times you flip the coin the chances of it landing on heads are still only 50%. So even if you flip the coin 12 times and all 12 times it lands on tails, when you flip it next the chances are still 50/50. </p>
<p>Apply that to colleges. The chance is still about 15% (just made up a random acceptance rate) for ALL applicants, no matter how many other colleges some applicants applied to.</p>
<p>Though that may work for coins, colleges are different. That is like saying if an applicant gets into the most selective school, he or she will get into all the schools he or she applied to.</p>
<p>YKW: i’ll bite. You’ve got to agree that each college will admit/reject based on its own criteria … each decision is an independent event. Thus the statistical model that Zombie describes holds true.</p>
<p>Your model in no way accounts for the relative strength of the applicant. If you’re truly one of those superstar applicants, then your 20 apps will yield you a handful of accepts from even elite colleges. If you’re mediocre, all your elite colleges will reject you.</p>
<p>Let’s say we have a 4.0GPA, 2360SAT Carnegie hall pianist, Siemens winner, Waterpolo captain applying to multiple top schools. Let’s compare him with an arrogant 15 yr old who thinks his 28ACT and boredom at his HS suddenly makes him a candidate for Caltech, Harvard and Stanford.</p>
<p>If student one applies to ten colleges, I suspect he’ll get several. </p>
<p>If the 15yo self declared prodigy applies to these three and say, ten more, I suspect he’ll be rejected by all thirteen. What do you say? According to your theory, brother 15yo should just apply to maybe ten more? Get a lucky and find a sleeping or overly happy admissions committee willing to take a chance on him?</p>
<p>Basically that’s what you’re saying. No way. Student two has zero chance.</p>
<p>you’re hoping on luck. I’ve observed luck is immaterial for the aggregate pool. Yeah. A guy who gets into Yale may well likely get into every other school applied – even other Ivies.</p>
<p>(finally, if you’re wondering why I’m so detailed with these “examples” – well you can guess)</p>
<p>No I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying the exact opposite. Just because someone gets into a school with a 5% acceptance rate, they still have the 30% chance of getting into a school with a 30% acceptance rate. </p>
<p>Using your logic if a person applies to 10 schools all with a 30% acceptance rate they have 30%+ chance of getting into one of them because they applied to more. That’s not how statistics work. These factors aren’t linked together AT ALL, therefore you look at each individually, NOT as a whole!</p>
<p>How is it different from flipping a coin? The probabilities are both constant. Now, if you consider the option of being weightlisted, and how there are only so many more students that are better than you, and how they can’t all fill in every position since they probably applied to multiple colleges too, THEN it makes sense to apply to as many as possible.</p>
<p>It may be like flipping a coin, but your chance of getting at least one head in twelve tosses is a lot higher than your chance of getting a head in one toss </p>
<p>Ok, got it ZombieDante. I just wanted some thoughts. You’ve cleared up some misunderstanding, but I don’t regret applying to many schools. At worst, I’ll have a lot to pick from (or not!).</p>
<p>^Oh I’m not saying that applying to a lot of schools is bad, I actually applied to more schools than I probably should have. I’m just saying the number you apply to doesn’t accept your overall chances.</p>
<p>While applying to many schools doesn’t increase the chances of getting into any particular one, it does increase the overall chance of getting into at least one of them.</p>
<p>Continuing the coin analogy:
Any individual fair coin has a probability of 0.5 of landing on heads, no matter how many times you flip it. However, the more times you flip it, the more likely it becomes that it will land on heads at least once. The probability of a coin landing on heads at least once in n trials is the complement of it landing on tails n-1 times—that is, 1-0.5^(n-1). Thus, the more times your flip a coin, the likelier it is that you will get at least one heads result.</p>
<p>The same goes true for colleges. Applying to many schools is inherently less risky than applying to only one. Though you may not get into the school of your choice, you won’t be left stranded with no acceptances at all.</p>
<p>Now I veer from Zombie’s assertion in post 5. If a person who is admitted to several schools with >5% accept rate, I posit that if she applied to 10 schools with a 30% accept rate, that she will get into more than the predicted 3 more colleges – that her chances are greater than the statistical measure of 30%. She possess something that even the most selective colleges desire. The less selective colleges will desire this even more than the selective ones.</p>
<p>I seem to recall a stat of H admitting 40% of 2400 SAT scorers. What is the admit rate of applicants to UMIch of 2400 SAT scorers? I posit that it’s higher than Harvard’s 40% (I’m only guessing b/c I don’t have either stat on hand) because 2400 scorers may apply in fewer nos. than to Harvard. When UMich sees them, the jump at them.</p>
<p>“It may be like flipping a coin, but your chance of getting at least one head in twelve tosses is a lot higher than your chance of getting a head in one toss.”</p>
<p>But they all consider a lot of similar things, so wouldn’t it be highly unlikely that, say, you’d be rejected from 11 selective schools and then get into the 12th? They’re all independent events but they’re definitely not random.</p>
<p>Ahahaha. Please excuse me for being willfully obnoxious.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>BAD STATISTICS ALERT
BAD STATISTICS ALERT</p>
<p>My dear friend. Let me ignore my homework for an outrageous amount of time in order to correct you.</p>
<p>Flipping a coin is an independent event with respect to flipping another coin, or the same coin at a different time. The formula for determining the likelihood of two independent events occuring is not [sum of two probabilities]/[number of probabilities] or whatever you are trying to say (doesn’t matter cuz its wrong).</p>
<p>Follow me.</p>
<p>Let’s check out…
Multiplication Rule 1!
When two events, A and B, are independent, the probability of both occurring is
P(A and B) = P(A) · P(B)</p>
<p>For example, the probability that you’ll get two heads in a total of two separate coin tossesssesss…</p>
<p>1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4</p>
<p>To be clear why:
You have a set of 4 possible outcomes:
HH
HT
TH
TT</p>
<p>Only one of these works. So…1/4. No, your chance of getting HH is not the same as your chance of getting anything else. </p>
<p>But of course! We’re talking about getting into at least one of the colleges you are applying to. So it’s a totally different equation!</p>
<p>Some other Rule NUMBUH 2:
P(A xor B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A and B)</p>
<p>So with coins, that means that the chance of someone getting heads in the first coin and/or heads with the second coin is </p>
<p>.5 + .5 - .25 = .75</p>
<p>Let me explaaaaain!</p>
<p>Tree diagram…
HH
HT
TT
TH</p>
<p>As you can seeeee, 75% of the equally likely end results include a heads. Cool, huh? </p>
<p>Now, instead let’s pretend that instead of flipping a coin, we’re applying to colleges you have a 50/50 shot of getting into! So instead of Heads and Tails, we’ll do Admitted and Denied!</p>
<p>Say you’re applying to just one elite school with a 50/50 shot. Your chance of getting into that elite school…50%!</p>
<p>Say you’re applying to two elite schools with a selective 50/50 shot! Your chances of getting into an elite school just jumped 25%!</p>
<p>For the record, a good way to assess the risk of your admissions portfolio is to use an as-rigorous-as-it-gets-when-you’re-a-unique-individual-and-stuff chancing service (like Parchment!) and then applying statistics like (but somewhat more cool than) the above to determine the chance that you’ll get in no where and end up sitting on the streets liek a bum (or worse, go to community college!). Similarly, you can constraint the risk assessment to only include colleges you actually want to go to (i.e., not your safety).</p>
<p>Because we all know that ending up at your safety is not actually what your goal is. (As it otherwise would not be your safety)</p>
<p>And yes, Philovitist, has proved that while admissions to any college will depend on that college’s criteria, applying to a bunch of schools helps when one’s goal is to get admitted to AN elite school - not a specific one.</p>
<p>I agree that applying to a wider swath of schools is an important strategy for those of you who actually have no “match” schools. Some of you have stats that make it so that your alleged ‘match’ schools have low admit percentages and are unreliable. So, you have safeties: stat based U’s, and you have reaches.</p>
<p>So, cast a wide net.</p>
<p>Good luck to you all as the results day draws near.</p>
<p>@poet, I think that’s where a lot of CCers fall, and that’s pretty much what I did. </p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I applied to several schools not only because I liked them all but also because I’m hoping to be able to compare various finaid packages.</p>
They won’t get into any elite school no matter how many applications they poop out. Because the acceptance rate of a school isn’t the probability for any one person, so the majority of the “statistical analyses” in this thread aren’t relevant. Most people have 0% chance, not 6% or whatever the schools rate is. Additionally, keep in mind that the decisions of the schools are not statistically independent. The “elite” schools are basically all looking for the same thing.</p>