<p>Martain is applying to 6 different universities. Each of the 6 institutions have an acceptance rate of 20%. Assuming that Martain is a qualified candidate, what is the probability he will be accepted into at least one?</p>
<p>About 74% assuming it actually works probablity wise, but it doesn’t</p>
<p>99% if his SATs are in the upper-quartile for most of them</p>
<p>Don’t even try doing z-intervals for this, there’s no way of knowing</p>
<p>how do you compute URMs and ECs into the equation?</p>
<p>You don’t.</p>
<p>I think if your qualified, then your bound to get accepted into atleast one of those six. Taking into account your EC’s, uniqueness and numbers.</p>
<p>But there is a luck factor, i mean, some selective schools would prefer a wide range of students; geniuses, average, athletic, nerdy, international, from all the states, from all races etc. So there is always a chance to get into good schools. Just don’t give up.</p>
<p>74%… but how can you possibly know that you have a 0.2 probability of admission at all six?</p>
<p>If you take 6 events each with probability of occurring of .2, then the probability atleast one will occur is .737856.</p>
<p>Equation:</p>
<p>For those that took the SAT,</p>
<p>1/2[(sin(SAT score)<em>cos(UW GPA)</em>tan(rank percentile))]</p>
<p>and for the ACT, </p>
<p>1/2[(sin(ACT score)<em>cos(UW GPA)</em>tan(rank percentile))]</p>
<p>Obviously, the chances will be based off of different scales for those that took the ACT rather than the SAT. Try it!</p>
<p>@puggly123, what exactly is rank percentile and how exactly do I put the value as? like if I’m 5% top, do I put it as .05?</p>
<p>^I just realized my equation will not work. Sorry.</p>
<p>It’s only 74% if the probabilities are independent</p>
<p>I feels that probabilities when it come to being selected for college are pretty much moot. The reason I see it that way is because if a bunch of schools are very selective and you don’t meet one school’s requirements or standards, why would the others be any different?
In any case, I would presume that if you are an incredible student, then you could have a 99% chance, but if you are mediocre at best, then maybe .01% chance. But that’s just me rambling though.</p>
<p>“It’s only 74% if the probabilities are independent”</p>
<p>The chance of getting into one college is not dependent on the chance of getting into another. They are independent.</p>
<p>^^That is somewhat true.
However, if you take into consideration that this so called “qualified applicant” was rejected from one school, it is highly probably that he was rejected for some deficiency that he had. Therefore, it is likely that at least one of the other five schools will also notice this “deficiency” and perhaps, also, reject him.</p>
<p>Fundamentally, they are ‘independent’ but at the same time, there is most likely a direct correlation between how “qualified” you are and how many schools you are accepted to, thus the statement that the candidate is “qualified” does not even make sense.</p>
<p>Qualified is not a single x value, it is a sliding scale and can mean a number of different things. I think we all know that college acceptances are not quantifiable (clearly, or we would know exactly where we will be accepted come winter), but I certainly think this an interesting issue to ponder, and perhaps would justify applying to more schools.</p>
<p>
[Independent</a> Statistics – from Wolfram MathWorld](<a href=“http://mathworld.wolfram.com/IndependentStatistics.html]Independent”>Independent Statistics -- from Wolfram MathWorld)</p>
<p>The only thing the OP did right was assume independence. If he in fact does have a 0.2 probability of acceptance, then it is completely legitimate to calculate further probabilities based on that figure. The problem is that he doesn’t have any legitimate way to conclude that the probability of any individual acceptance is in fact 0.2.</p>
<p>All of you are wrong. There are way too many variables to actually calculate something like this.</p>