Hi all,
Wondering if anyone could possibly share some insight into the chances of one getting into an ivy, if you were to, hypothetically, apply to most of them.
In terms of my personal stats, I am getting mainly A’s, previous years I got straight A’s, however this year picked up a lot of (pretty difficult!!) calculus classes so I got two B’s in those but rest A’s. Overall, I participate in a range of sports and community life in school, fundraising, clubs, debating. However, I consider my ‘spark’ to be international relations and have mainly focused on those activities: mock UN debates, foreign exchange, learning languages and participating in events for language communities (volunteering, tutoring, etc…).
Haven’t taken SAT’s or ACT’s yet, however am doing practices and am hoping that they will go like planned, so fingers crossed!
Just wondering if anyone would know if I would have a chance of getting in? Any help would be very much appreciated!!
Many thanks!!
If each school receives 40,000 applications with a 5% acceptance rate your chances are 1 in 2000 with average stats. If you apply to 10 schools, your chances become 10 in 20,000 which is still 5%. The reason these schools have such a low acceptance rate is because EVERY kid is doing the exact same thing, thinking they’re increasing their odds. They’re actually doing the exact opposite. The math doesn’t lie.
Seriously, I wouldn’t waste my time with those schools. I would do some digging and pick a good affordable school based on your goals and interests.
Coolguy40 “I wouldn’t waste my time with those school’s”.
So based on a cursory reading of the OP’s academic background, no test data and no specificity as to career and life goals or finances you would eliminate all of the incredibly diverse Ivy League schools? The only thing all of these schools have in common is their exclusivity but you know enough to say OP should move on…
Cool guy- By the way your math is flat out wrong so your numbers do lie. Theoretically at each and any school with a 5% acceptance rate you have a a 1 in 20 chance. The numbers of course can’t be extrapolated that clearly. Quality of application, demographics and the specific needs of each school will adjust the likelihood of acceptance. But 1 in 2,000 is just completely flawed mathematically when juxtaposed against a holistic addmissions process.
OP Ivy League school’s are very tough to get in. Start by identifying what you are looking for in a school and compare it to what the schools are looking for. Then identify which if any school’s match one another. I would not suggest applying to all 8 as they are so diverse that some of your applications by definition will be insincere and read accordingly.
OP Be cautious who you take counsel from. When asking questions of a mad and violent crowd, you will get mad and violent answers. People that can’t aspire to Ivy schools frequently dismiss the school’s as a whole to validate their own personal positions or inadequacies.
@Nocreativity1 Check your numbers again. If you apply to 10 schools that receive 40,000 applications a piece, that comes to a total of 400,000 total applications you’re competing with. If each of them has an average 5% acceptance rate it comes to 20,000 total acceptances. That’s 5%. If one of the schools has a slightly higher acceptance rate, it can increase the average a little, but it WON’T bring it to 1 in 20…sorry. That doesn’t add up.
The holistic argument is not a measurement, it’s just an elaborate excuse. The fact is, if you have a school with a 5% acceptance rate, you have a 95% chance of getting denied. At that rate, your acceptance becomes an academic lottery.
All the Ivies are different. It makes just as much sense to ask “Possible chances of getting into an ACC school?”.
Coolguy- example below that wil evidence you are wrong.
If someone has a 5% chance of acceptance that is 1 in 20 chance. For every 20 applicants 1 gets accepted.
You are applying the acceptance rate twice which is erroneous and creates an inverse result. See below.
Example one (5% your base case): School has 40,000 applicants and accepts 5% or 2,000 kids. You claim applicant has 1 in 2,000 chance.
Example two (10%): School has 40,000 applicants and accepts 10% or 4,000. Under your methodology odds are 1 in 4,000 even though acceptance rate is higher. I don’t think so.
Example three (99%); School has 40, 000 applicants and accepts 99% or 39,600 kids. According to your methodology that kid has a 1 in 39,600 chance of addmission.
Example four (1/10 of 1%): Schools has 40,000 applicants and accepts .1% or 40 applicants. According to your methodology odd are 1 in 40. Odds are better at lower acceptance rate in your convoluted world?
Do you now agree? 5% is 1 in 20.
Coolguy “you have a 95% chance of getting denied. At that rate, your acceptance becomes an academic lottery”.
I also challenge your use of the lottery analogy. You can’t influence a lottery through intelligence, hard work, commitment to ECs, or a well crafted application. By suggesting that Ivy admission is purely a function of luck, you are diminishing the hard work of all who atttend Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale.
I agree that gaining addmission to these schools (and many others) is very hard (particularly with marginal math or language skills). Nonetheless you should not advise an aspiring high school student to give up a dream and suggest he or she doesn’t control their own destiny.
With no test scores and a vague idea of GPA no one can gauge your chances at the Ivies. Despite all the statistical manipulation that some have tried.
^Indeed no idea so work towards it if that is your goal.
@Nocreativity1 Lol! The point you missed is that there are a wide variety of colleges that have a wide variety of majors that serve a wide variety of economic areas. Setting you’re whole identity on a small group of schools with a 5% acceptance rate is not a smart way to apply for college. Choosing a school based on rankings is lazy. Nearly 100% of the time, kids end up with a list of rejections or a list of acceptances to schools they can’t afford. They either end up going to a safety school they halfheartedly threw in, or end up going to community college for the first semester. There’s plenty of justifications and excuses, but the end result is very predictable.
Applying the 5% rate to any one individual is not accurate. Of the 40,000 applicants, 10,000 to 20,000 (or even higher) have no virtually 0 chance based on gpa, test scores, rigor of courses, which makes the odds somewhat better for everyone else. There will be some limited number of applicants (putting aside the athletic recruits and development cases who are virtually assured of acceptance) who will likely be admitted almost anywhere given the substantial number of cross admits each year to highly selective schools. This is not like rolling dice where you increase your overall chances proportionately with more rolls. What drives individual chances includes a lot of judgments that no can see, especially as candidates are compared with “like” candidates. The only thing you can objectively do is compare your objective stat’s against the stat’s of entering students in each school’s common data set to see if you will even make the first cut, or if you are average or above average. @ucbalumnus link above has other factors you need to consider.
Coolguy- I didnt miss a point by correcting your math. Would you now agree that your methodology was flawed and that those that got into Ivies aren’t just the beneficiaries of the luck of the draw or are you just changing the subject?
I fully appreciate the uniqueness of each school and the need to customize ones search. Nice diversion attempt however…
As BKsquared points out the odds are tough to calculate with any precision. The percentages only provide a degree of relative competitiveness. That said if you have stats at the top quartile of school averages you are a far cry from Coolguys 1 in 2,000 misstatement.
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