Pizza, thanks for the shoutout. My personal theory is that Brown indeed gets a lower percentage of Hail Mary applicants primarily because of Legacy (in this case, the lack thereof). Every graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Law School, Med School, Business School, Kennedy School of Government, School of Education- and of course, Arts and Sciences both grad and undergrad believes their kids to be “legacies”. Harvard can’t possibly absorb the progeny of all of its graduates- even the ones who clear the bar on acceptability.
Brown has a small undergrad university and a Med school (the business program is too recent to have alums with college aged kids). No law school. The PhD programs in Applied Math, Religious Studies, and some other areas are world renowned but small- nothing to compare with HBS or HLS in terms of numbers of grads.
So my observation is that there are significantly fewer people “out there” who feel connected to Brown in the way that people feel connected to Harvard (even though Grandpa having attended Harvard, class of '53 is a pretty tenuous connection to Harvard, all things being equal, unless Grandpa also endowed a library and a chair in neuroscience.) So when the time comes for the Hail Mary application, it’s going to Harvard and not to the smaller (as measured in number of alumni families out there) and not to Brown.
Hence- a LOT of random, not in a million years applications go to Harvard. Fewer to Brown.
Assuming that to be true, that might suggest that their acceptance rates are pretty equal once the Hail Marys are taken out of the denominator; it’s just that H gets more of those Hail Marys.
With admittedly no evidence whatsoever, I would guess that the two Ivies that would get the most Hail Mary applicants would be Harvard, and Cornell. I imagine that one group thinks that if they are going to go for it, they might as well go all the way for Harvard, while the other group think that they should try the one that gives them the best chance based on percent accepted.
I see too many acceptance numbers that don’t seem to be current. Here are those for class of 2020.
Brown University 2,919 from 32,390 9%.
Columbia University 2,193 from 36,292 6.04%.
Cornell University 6,277 from 44,966 13.96%.
Dartmouth College 2,176 from 20,675 10.52%.
Penn 3,661 from 38,918 9.4%.
Princeton University 1,894 from 29,303 6.46%.
Yale University 1,972 from 31,455 6.27%.
Harvard 2,037 more than 39,000 5.2%
Stanford 2,063 from 43,997 4.69%
@californiaaa would point out that Brown has lower international recognition than Harvard (or the top state universities). Among those who care about such things, Brown would probably receive fewer applications.
That point about yield is significant. It could also mean that a school like Dartmouth might reject (or waitlist) some kids who seem like they’re more likely to go to HPYS. In a way, this would mean that Dartmouth is “easier” to get into for kids with slightly weaker stats. But not much easier.
“Every graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Law School, Med School, Business School, Kennedy School of Government, School of Education- and of course, Arts and Sciences both grad and undergrad believes their kids to be “legacies””
This is true of Stanford but not of Harvard. Harvard College (i.e. undergrad) makes is perfectly clear, loudly and repeatedly, that only sons and daughters of graduates of Harvard College get granted legacy status. Children of the Harvard graduate and professional schools get no boost for undergrad admissions.
Dartmouth might be “easier” for kids who truly have it as their first choice and can show that, along with the other details needed. A handful more will be accepted, as the school knows 50% won’t enroll. Even D doesn’t need to go to “slightly weaker” stats except as it relates to holistic, already. I don’t think anyone can assume their matriculants are less stellar. It’s just that they will take a few more out of a highly competitive pool. When you get to the final round, all those kids are tops, in the ways the college wants.
I don’t think there’s any dearth of international applicants to any of the tippy tops and even the next level. It’s ridiculous and uninformed to say, eg, that some Ivy or Rice aren’t known internationally. I’m not sure we should even indulge the sort of talk that some great schools are subpar choices. Certainly not because one person somewhere made some declaration.
The admission rates and yields act recurcively. Stanford dean said when their admit rates were higher, they were admitting a lot more students (2006 had 400 more for 11% admit rate) but as a lower percentage was getting admitted due to the higher number of apps, their yield started going up, requiring them to cut the admitted number.
Penn states that only kids who apply ED get the “tip” of Legacy. Harvard states explicitly that only Harvard College grants Legacy.
Nobody believes this to be true outside of the gates of these universities. I have an acquaintance who graduated from Harvard Extension school who thinks her kid is a legacy.
I would note that whether a school has ED or not may also make a significant difference in what its pool looks like, and what the admissions numbers mean.
really sad to hear this. I of course had my suspicions and you just confirmed. It’s a real shame when merit doesn’t count MORE than extraneous things like ethnicity or quotas. Frankly, all accepted applicants should have to meet the same academic standards , not have admissions look away when it suits them. Remember for every under achieving
athlete or student there is a well deserving kid that did the work and would really excel.
“Merit” is at the top of the list. All have to meet the same academic standards. That’s just broader than you think, more than what you think is a top score. Ethnicity or race alone will NOT get you into a college you are not prepared for.
It shouldn’t be such a surprise the top holistic colleges don’t rack and stack.
Athletic recruiting is another matter, which depends on the particular college.
One factor that I think no one has mentioned yet is a variation on the personal essay that alienates the adcoms – the “why HYPSM (or Chicago, fill in your selective school of choice)” essay. I suspect that many, many of those highly qualified kids who strike out across the board on Ivy applications wrote incredibly generic essays that made clear that they were just chasing prestige. As has been pointed out repeatedly, it makes absolutely no sense to apply to all 8 Ivy League schools unless one is trophy hunting – they’re just too different, no one would fit at all of them.
I know both adcoms and folks who spent some time working as readers in their elite undergrad’s admissions office before professional school and they all say that they can easily spot kids who are applying to the brand name rather than the institution. It’s completely fair to take the kid who has the marginally lower test score and GPA when they can articulate exactly why they want to go to the institution and how they will add to the campus community. Similarly, saying the equivalent of “I want to go to (ivy league school) so I can be around intellectually-superior people like myself” (a reason often provided by the Ivy-obsessed on CC) just demonstrates that the applicant doesn’t understand the school or the quality of students at non-Ivy schools (we won’t get into the pretentious-jerk factor that absolutely comes through in some essays). There’s no unfairness in rejecting a superficial applicant who happens to score well.
One final point on the Naviance comparisons – they tell you nothing that allows you to compare one data point to another. The GPA numbers tell you absolutely nothing about rigor – a 4.0 kid who didn’t challenge himself is always going to be rejected by “top schools” and that “lower” 3.85 is not inferior if that kid took harder courses. Even weighting doesn’t give you the full picture if a student deliberately avoided all of the most rigorous APs (they read the entire transcript – it’s not just about that one number). Likewise, I doubt any school really perceives a first-time 32 ACT to be “inferior” to the kid who got a 34 on his fourth attempt (yes, they look at the highest score, but schools who ask for all scores are almost certainly aware of how many attempts have been made). None of that is going to show up on the Naviance scattergram.
Sometimes it will. One of my kids had a roommate like that. Great kid. African American. Horribly underqualified for the college and struggling desperately just to avoid flunking out. And this kid was not unique.
In this case, the student’s URM status was a disadvantage because it meant that the student ended up at an inappropriate college.
I simply don’t get how anything subjective could be “predictable.” It’s like me walking into a bar with a girlfriend, looking at 10 different guys, and trying to “predict” which one she will fall in love with based on their resumes. Just dumb.