<p>@purpletitan we’ve been looking at the numbers and doing the math on this issue on CC for years. The ED SCEA numbers are not applicable to the regular applicant. </p>
<p>@SomeOldGuy:</p>
<p>I daresay that Williams is an exception though (small LAC with a ton of athletes).</p>
<p>@poetgrl, and if you’d done the numbers, you’d be able to figure out that even if you take out athletes and legacies, applying ED gives “regular applicants” better odds over applying RD at several schools.</p>
<p>A clear example is CalTech, which says it gives no bump to athletes or legacies but where (for the last year that I can find data), the EA admission rate was much higher than the RD admission rate.</p>
<p>There are also schools that have flat-out said that they would favor kids who have them as their first choice (and have the ED acceptance rates to back up their words).</p>
<p>CalTech? are you seriously referencing Cal Tech?</p>
<p>All Nescac schools are like that. Also, this is a thread about the Ivies.</p>
<p>Trust me, the math has been done to death.</p>
<p>"Would be interesting how his opinions relate to those in Ivy league admissions offices which seem to vary <strong>a lot</strong> in their ethnicity considerations. Clearly college admissions have biases in diversity. "</p>
<p>Meaningless unless you compare to the ethnic makeup of the applicant pool. I know we’re talking about Ivies, but the fact that Stanford is more heavily Asian than many of the Ivies doesn’t mean “they like Asians better” - it may mean that their applicant pool is more heavily Asian because they are in a state that holds a good % of the US Asian population.</p>
<p>You can draw NO conclusions about “biases in diversity” without applicant pool info. None. A college with a high % of Asians relative to the general population might have a) a super-large Asian applicant pool and they accept very few, or b) a small Asian applicant pool and they accept a lot of them. </p>
<p>Remember that the Ivy leagues are located closer geographically and overlap more (strengths etc.) than when you broaden to include Stanford, MIT and Caltech - so although differences in ethnicity in the applicant pool is expected (and also can be due to URM outreach, application fee waivers etc.) among Ivy leagues, I would expect the Ivies to be more similar in ethnic makeup than between some state school or lower tier private and the Ivies.</p>
<p>Clearly the ethnic makeup of Stanford (and Columbia for that matter) is unusual compared to typical US universities. At Stanford (see <a href=“Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications”>Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications) their enrollment of white students is a little over 1/2 the national percentage (see census data at <a href=“http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html”>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html</a>), and even if you assume only students from California apply (and California has a lower percentage of Whites than most states, and more than double the percentage of Asians) it is a significantly lower percentage than expected. On the other hand Asian’s represent 22% of Stanford’s US (non-international) students but only 14% of California and 5% of the US population. Applicant pool differences are surely involved in part, but other differences clearly exist but I doubt that Universities would publish their numbers on ethnic bias (pro/con) in their admissions info to make it easier for prospective students to select which Universities they have a better chance of getting in.</p>
<p>@2018RiceParent : the Ivies are pretty different. Being private, in the same part of the country, and playing in the same athletic conference is about all they share.</p>
<p>@poetgrl: Yes, I’m “seriously referencing Caltech”. What’s wrong with “seriously referencing Caltech”? </p>
<p>And no, not “all NESCAC schools are like that”. It does seem as if you both like to overgeneralize and are bad at math (because, again, if you did do the math, at many schools, even if you adjust for athletes and legacies, ED has a higher admit rate than RD), but for instance, Wesleyan’s student body is 21% athletes. To me, 21% is pretty different from 37%.</p>
<p>“I would expect the Ivies to be more similar in ethnic makeup than between some state school or lower tier private and the Ivies.”</p>
<p>Why?? That’s kind of strange. Yes, they are all in the northeast, but some are urban, some are rural … some are in large population states, some are in small states … some have more pre-professional focus, others have less of that focus … they share an athletic conference. If you were to take, say, the top 30 universities on USNWR just for the sake of argument, take off the Ivy label, you have several different clusters of schools. Princeton would align with Vanderbilt with a certain kind of social tone and tenor. Penn and Cornell would align with Northwestern and Wash U as having a mix of pre-professional and not. Duke and Stanford might belong together. Columbia would align with U of Chicago in terms of having a core. And so forth. Why would you expect the same student to be interested in (say) Brown as Dartmouth, or Brown and Columbia? Unless they are just selecting based on athletic conference. </p>
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<p>And it shows. </p>
<p><a href=“Wesleyan University - Official Athletics Website”>Wesleyan University - Official Athletics Website;
<p>@PurpleTitan </p>
<p>If you believe the ED advantage is more than it is in admissions, it matters not at all to me. Clearly there is an edge in this game and clearly ED/SCEA confers some advantage. </p>
<p>However, the numbers, as you have stated them, are not accurate. They leave out the significant number of legacy and athletic and other special early admits, who are a large part of the accepted in that group.</p>
<p>Then back them out. Easily done.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The military service academics admit most cadets/midshipmen under quotas based on states or districts associated with members of Congress (who nominate students from their states (Senator) or districts (Representative) to compete for the limited number appointments available for their states or districts). This ensures some level of geographic diversity; ethnic diversity tends to be related to geographic diversity.</p>
<p><a href=“Nomination Requirements | U.S. Air Force Academy”>http://www.academyadmissions.com/admissions/the-application-process/nominations/</a></p>
<p>Another review of the book:
<a href=“Are Élite Colleges Bad for the Soul? | The New Yorker”>Are Élite Colleges Bad for the Soul? | The New Yorker;
<p>This was very well put:</p>
<p><a href=“Snobs vs. The Ivy League (or, The Question of Bill Deresiewicz's Character) | dagblog”>Snobs vs. The Ivy League (or, The Question of Bill Deresiewicz's Character) | dagblog;
<p>This is a media/news site, not a personal blog.</p>