<p>Hey all, I picked up this book a while ago and I thought a lot of what was in it was very interesting. I had known that Ivy league admissions were difficult but this had a good insight on the whole admissions process and why things work the way they work. The author, Bill Paul, actually followed former Princeton dean Fred Hargadon for a year in which he explained a lot about the admissions process. Ive included some experts that I thought were interesting and although you may already have a grasp about a lot of it, maybe it will make you feel a little better about being rejected or accepted. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that this book was published in the late 90s so you can compare the difficulty of admissions back then and how admissions a decade later has only become harder.</p>
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As the house lights dimmed, even this group of alums were slightly intimidated. On a large screen at the front of the room, a graphic appeared, showing that 1,534 high school valedictorians had applied for admission to Princeton the previous year. Now, the dean said, of that 1,534, how many do you think we offered admission to?
Hargadon paused.
About 495.
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A myth has grown up that every candidate has a one-in-six or one-in-seven chance of being offered admissions, as calculated by taking the total number of acceptances offered and dividing the total number of students who apply. Theres no candiate I meet that I can tell them the odds are one out of six, because the odds arent one out of six for everybody. Some candidates have a one-out-of-two chance, some a one out of forty. Hargadon says.
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Do you know how many times I read, Best student Ive had in ten years, Best math student in twenty years? How many times?! Hargadon asks plaintively. Id be shocked if I was some of the kids that I turn down.
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<p>On essays he quoted Flaubert
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"Whatever the thing you want to say, there is but one word to express it, but one verb to give it movement, but one adjective to qualify it; you must seek until you find this noun, this verb, this adjective. When you pass a grocer sitting in his doorway, a porter smoking a pipe, or a cab stand, show that grocer and that porter...in such a way that I could not mistake them for any other grocer or porter, and by a single word give me to understand wherein the cab horse different from fifty others before it or behind it."
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..spot the students who will give the best questions, not those who can give the best answers.
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In his letter to prospective applicants, Hargadon strongly advises students to just be yourself on the application. Unable to resist exercising his wry sense of humor, the dean adds, I confess every time I offer that advice, I remember the comment that Mark Twain made: Telling a person to be himself is the worst advice you can give to some people. Still, thats my advice.
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Many candidates are driven to make themselves look like they know as much and have accomplished as much as possible, Hargadon said one day after wading through yet another pile of applications. I think its the rare student in our schools who isnt worried about impressing and who has a very good perspective on life and is comfortable admitting what it is they dont know.
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We try to distinguish between who wants to come here for the learning, he told me, and who wants to come here to get another set of credentials on top of the ones they have in order to do the next step.
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For every student that a school like Princeton offers to admit, it has no choice but to turn down five or six other applicants, some of whom are deserving of a spot in the next freshman class. Sadly, sometimes Princeton rejects deserving students for whom Princeton is the first choice, in favor of candidates who have no intention of going to Princeton if they are also accepted by, say, Harvard of Standford.
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What really wears me down, the dean says, is trying to distinguish between candidates all of whom are really excellent.
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Though Princeton never accepts more than a handful of applicants from the wait-list, Hargadon wait-lists three hundred to four hundred applicants each year. While such a long list may falsely raise some applicants hopes of still being accepted, the list is long because Hargadon feels that so many candidates deserve better than a letter of rejection. Being waitlisted is as close as we can come to saying, We should have admitted you.
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<p>And on an ending note the author writes, I believe, some good words for everyone:</p>
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Being yourself may mean going in an unexpected direction- even discovering that your self doesnt really fit in with the academic intensity of place like Princeton after all. The real point is not so much where you go to school as how you live your life. If youre learning, growing, and pursuing your own interests with a passion- Id say youve already got the better part of the bargain.
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<p>Theres so much more in this book but Ive just included some excerpts. And although its mainly about Princeton I feel like its safe to say it goes for other ivy leagues as well, including in many cases Yale. So whether youve been rejected by Yale or any other school dont think of it as the end. Theres so much more to life and even if youve been rejected by, in your eyes, the perfect school dont let that bring you down. Theres more then just one college in the world for a reason and its up to you to make the most of where you end up going to. </p>
<p>Good Luck.</p>