<p>In another thread a poster linked to the application information for a CA school at <a href=“http://www.pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf”>http://www.pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf</a> . There are some interesting patterns, such as the students who are near the top of their class tended to more colleges than the students who were ranked lower in the class. For example, 1 of the 2 students who graduated with a perfect 5.0 weighted GPA, applied to 22 colleges. Among the students who applied to H, Y, or P, roughly 40% applied to only 1 HYP school. and roughly 60% applied to multiple HYP schools. It’s likely this HS isn’t representative, and you’ll get different distributions with HSs in different locations, different SES areas, public vs private, etc. In general, I’d expect that northeast schools would be more likely to have students applying to multiple schools in the HYP group than west coast schools due to location bias. </p>
<p>Note that some of the students who are only applying to 1 of the 3 do so for reasons that have little to do with prestige, nearby alternative colleges, or application cost. For example, I grew up in upstate NY, near the center of the ivies. My home town is located between 150 and 200 miles of 7 of the 8 ivies, and ~240 miles away from the 8th (Penn). Students in my HS are most likely to apply to Cornell, and have roughly equal number of applications to the other 7. Stanford receives a small fraction of the number of applications to any of the ivies, due to the distance. When I applied to colleges, I applied to Princeton and not Harvard or Yale. H and Y weren’t even on my radar as potential colleges since I was interested in engineering, and at the time I believed that H and Y had weak engineering programs. Had Princeton been on the west coast instead of the east, I likely would have still applied to Princeton, and I definitely would still not have applied to H or Y. Engineering is far from the only area that separates the 3 schools. I’d expect many of the applicants who apply to 1 school do so because they are not particularly interested in the other 2.</p>
<p>Regarding income level, there isn’t much information out there on the income level of applicants to HYP, but there is information about the income level of entering HYP students. For example, the Harvard freshman survey at <a href=“The Harvard Crimson | Class of 2017”>http://features.thecrimson.com/2013/frosh-survey/admissions.html</a> suggests a median family income between $125k and $150k. It is possible for Harvard families to get need-based FA grants with incomes of over $200k, if they do not have large non-retirement/primary home assets. The net price calc suggests FA grants are possible for families with incomes of over $300k as well, if they have 3 kids in college. I’d expect Yale and Princeton to have similar policies. At <a href=“Affordability: The Details | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions”>Affordability: The Details | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions; , Yale mentions that 99% of families with incomes of $150k to $200k that applied for FA grants received them, with an average grant size of $27k.</p>
<p>That said, there are indeed some students who apply to a limited number of reach schools, such as 1 or 2, and choose among HYP instead of applying to all 3. This effect would increase the number of HYP apps, if some of the schools were located in different sections of the country, due to location bias. Of course there are other hypothetical scenarios that would decrease the number of applications, such as if HYP required special essays and extra effort in the application process like Stanford does. Some hypothetical scenarios would increase admit rate, and some would decrease admit rate. Does it really matter whether there is some combination of hypothetical events that could decrease the admit rate at H, Y, or P to Stanford’s level?</p>