Stanford dean: School’s ultra-low admit rate not something to boast about

@bernie12,

Our local public high school sends between 5-10 kids to Harvard and MIT each year. Most of the ones that I know are what I consider “normal exceptional” kids, meaning top 1-2% of class and nationally ranked in one activity. Only one of them in the past few years did something “truly exceptional”, which was win the IMO gold medal.

While Harvard, MIT and other tippy-top colleges have a high concentration of the “truly exceptional” kids, they certainly don’t fill the entire class. And the “normal exceptional” kids at MIT or Harvard could very well have landed at WUSTL, Rice, or Vanderbilt.

@jhebegebe

Absolutely. But I am highlighting that tippy top ones as indicated by their yield have more of a pick so indeed will have a higher concentration (BTW, honestly, it is significant to even make training camp for those Olympiads) of those either ultra exceptional in their academic interests or just simply have extra experience that make them more capable than normal in a challenging environment. If you look at intro. STEM classes at tippy tops, most have a completely different curriculum or level of teaching than other schools. Princeton for example has a biology sequence including a significant amount of physical biology/biophysics. Harvard mixes much more general and organic chemistry with theirs. MIT is more like an experimental biology crash course so has lots more problem solving than other selective schools. Many other schools not in the top 10 that are in their score brackets do not come close. Surprisingly it is often the ones with lower score ranges that are closer or even more interesting than would be expected and such schools can do that simply because they have a threshold of students that went to those places for that level of instruction or professors at the school.

And then you have students who basically ask for no more than to land at some selective private regardless of its academic strengths and offerings (they may be far more concerned with the social experience and/or even rank so just go to the highest ranked place that they get decent aid from. They don’t look into specifics as hard). Some schools are so across the board excellent that they get more academic types in many fields and some schools (often outside of the tippy top) get really good matches for those specifically interested in their strengths (so get a more niche applicant pool assuming no ultra aggressive marketing tactics). Social butterfly schools can kind of catch many more apps (because I would say many academically elite students are like that) because of that and a high rank regardless of how good individual program options are known to be. Unlike super elites or more academically focused schools, they are known for high quality of life

^ Interesting what you say about Harvard. For example I had heard from an MIT parent that it thrives on the macho academic atmosphere, we do in 6 weeks what other ivies do in a semester. I have heard the opposite about Harvard ever since I was kid. No idea if it is a myth or not but the gentlemen B or C (for the kid who should have gotten a D anyplace else) and how easy it was to get an A compared to other top schools. The theory being that Harvard wants its students focused on the whole experience rather than sitting in a Chem lab on a Saturday night. I HAVE NO IDEA IF THIS IS TRUE, this is just the myth I have always heard. Princeton had the reputation for grade deflation which again I heard rumors they are no longer encouraging.

As for entering Olympiads, there are certain things that even your suburban middle class has no idea exists. Perhaps New Tier GCs know about it but I guarantee you my kids science teachers do not an the few kids who went to HYPs did not do those things. As for Intel, I believe there are only 2000 participants in the competition (looked it up a couple of years ago). So not alot of people available for the Top 20. People that I have known who went to HYPSMC and UCh, with two exceptions out of 20, IRL were as @hebegebe described, bright kids who wrote well, were a little smarter than average but it appeared very random. They could have ended up at WUSTL or Cornell just as easily.

The median GPA at Harvard is just under 3.7, so grade inflation definitely exists if the expectation is that students are compared to others within the university. The idea is that students can focus on academics to gain knowledge rather than just to compete. Some have argued that it doesn’t count as grade deflation because Harvard students are well into the top 5% of all college students, so comparing them to each other with grading curves similar to other schools would be unfair.

interesting read.

@usualhopeful, they may be in the top 5% but so are the ones at the other top 5 or 6 schools who do not have such a high gpa. If anything, depending on how you define top 5% of students, other top schools have higher gpas and SATs than Harvard since it presumably is looking for intangibles and diversity.

@SeekingPam Very true, and I’m not so sure I agree with Harvard’s policy.

Princeton admission statistics for its class of 2019 broken out by GPA and then by SAT scores:

https://admission.princeton.edu/applyingforadmission/admission-statistics

Stanford admission statistics for its class of 2019 broken down by GPA, class rank, and test scores.

http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/profile.html

I don’t think the data says much that cannot be gleaned from basic analysis. The really interesting pieces of the puzzle (that colleges do not publish to avoid lawsuits) would be acceptance rate by race, first-generation, etc.

In the article it said how Stanford is considering “growing” its student population. Although it wouldn’t be an increase of much, it would really satisfy the applicants (aka me in 2 years).

I would say that grading on a strict curve at Harvard wouldn’t be unfair, but that it is unnecessary.

Is it any more necessary at Princeton or any other top 5 school? Yet Harvard seems to have the highest mean GPA according to someone who posted on this thread.

Not in my opinion, although Princeton has reportedly had less grade inflation than others.

Back in the 60’s/70’s MIT introduced pass/fail grading for freshman year (while making the grades visible to the students) in an effort to reduce the suicide rate. The reasoning being that the students could gradually adapt to the fact that the level of competition was higher at MIT than their respective high schools.

In my opinion, it would be unwise for Harvard or any of the schools that attract highly competitive students to start grading on a curve. There is already enough social competition for students to deal with…

Yet they do!

@SeekingPam : Those are kind of myths when you talk about STEM at a place like Harvard. The only issue is that, unlike an actual STEM oriented university, it grades in line with other private schools and not like MIT and certainly not Harvey Mudd, Georgia Tech, or Berkeley’s engineering/science. The courses at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are often very comparable to MIT (I challenge you to go find old H course websites for STEM weeder courses and compare them to MIT OpenCourseWare courses which are representative of several instructors. If you talk about the advanced courses for well-prepared students) for most science majors at least (like content and difficulty). There are of course joke like STEM courses for non-majors (for gen. ed purposes), but that is typical at non-STEM schools. And yes, places like HYP grade on curves for challenging courses (with Yale’s being noticeably more generous).

WUSTL and Cornell tend to sometimes yield Siemens finalists and competitiors and surprisingly even my school, Emory does as well (but often those of the pre-health persuasion…same for WUSTL). The idea is that many of these types end up going to schools that are perceived as strong in their area of interest (they often aren’t “willy nilly top private” but sometimes already have an idea of what school will help them continue whatever they were doing the most) and it seems like certain top ranking schools have a preference for that sort of credential and could arguably be better served by the academic offerings at such schools which are tiered more like public schools (but often with a higher baseline level). If I am advanced and serious about taking up some passion at the school and developing more, I would actually be more picky about the departmental strengths of the school I have as a candidate. I am less likely to be wooed away by things like nice facilities and amenities versus a stronger academic environment or program. There is likely less of the assumption of “oh, they are all the same for what I want to do” which just often isn’t true. Some students are aware of such differences and care and some are not and don’t. I am willing to bet you some sorts of schools end up with an imbalance with these two categories.

However, when you talk about admissions, you are certainly correct. However, that doesn’t mean those schools would have been a better fit for them is what I am saying (how interesting that they managed to get into the tippy top that felt they fit there). There is a reason many of the tippy top schools kind of feel a bit different from the others. It is some combination of the institutional cultural (historically) and the backgrounds and attitudes the students bring in that ultimately make them seem different from other schools not really in that bracket. Like you can’t argue that Vanderbilt and WUSTL are starting to feel more like Chicago, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, and Yale in terms of vibe because their scores are the same. If anything, students choose those two because they don’t like the intensity of the others I named (though I caution against approaching WUSTL’s STEM courses with a “sigh of relief” attitude at least in life and natural sciences).

Eliminate Early Decision

I want to see stats of realistic applications vs. overall applications. What is the average SAT score of those who apply? What is the average GPA of those who apply?

If you are getting high quality applicants at all of these top schools, then yes, being selective is truly being selective.

But I have talked to applicants who talk about their 1600 SAT scores (yes, on a 2400 scale) and how they are trying to get up to 1800. And they are applying to my Ivy League alma mater. At some point, guidance counselors are not providing guidance. The best student at some high schools is nowhere near Ivy League let alone HYPSM.

^ In the Stanford stats referenced above as an example, 80-85% of applicants are in top 10% of their class and have a GPA 3.7 or higher, but only around 50% are above 700 per SAT section.

@bluewater2015 - first more kids take ACT than SAT. Second we can’t differentiate the kid with the 800/800/690 from the kid who is 600/600/600 by their disclosure.