Myth or Fact: Applying to many elite schools doesn't raise chances of acceptance.

[Philovitist]

<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>

<p>Ehhh. </p>

<p>“Most people” who actually have any business applying to elite schools — i.e., they have stats that fit at/near/above the school’s stats profile — have a greater than 5% chance of getting in, based on the information they can provide about their academic achievements and how people in the past with similar achievements have fared. And all a person needs is >0% in order for multiple applications to make a difference.</p>

<p>And these decisions are indeed statistically independent. The forces that decide if Coin Number One flips heads are pretty similar to the forces that decide if Coin Number Two does instead. But that doesn’t mean that Coin Two’s result isn’t more-or-less independent of Coin One’s, since statistical independence is a function of, er, the occurrence of one event affecting the probability of the other.</p>

<p>Whether Duke accepts me or not does not, in itself, change my chances of getting into Yale. >.></p>