<p>Means you are a slow learner. Probably why you missed those last 20 points of the perfect SAT.</p>
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<p>That’s pretty much how it always worked out for me.</p>
<p>Until I discovered my wife at STCL - “Spouses That Change Lives.”</p>
<p>“Isn’t a subjective process inherently NOT random?”</p>
<p>Randomness (actual quantum mechanics aside) is basically about opacity. I mean with full info, the roll of a die is deterministic, right? But I dont have full info, so TO ME each roll of the die (from a slightly different position) is random. So the more times I roll two dice, say, the greater my chance of rolling snake eyes on at least one roll.</p>
<p>Now IF I knew which adcons would read my app at each college, what their mood would be, what time of day, what mix of other apps, the social dynamics when they made group decisions, etc in theory I the process would be completey determined (assuming they arent rolling dice for ties, but see above). But I DON’T know that. I have the total apps ratio. I may have a better idea than that, if I know my stats relative to others in the app pool, know if I have important strikes for or against me, etc. But even once Ive determined that I am , say, a white male with average stats for the admitted class, who’s done band but not Model UN, comes from a nearby state, etc - at that point all I know is that I have a 10% chance. </p>
<p>It is precisely the opacity of the process - the difficulty in predicting who will get in where - the kids who are rejected at Brown (or Chicago, to make this less Ivy focused), say, and accepted at Harvard - that leads to the large numbers of apps.</p>
<p>I discussed DD’s admittance to RPI with some folks i know on an international web board - they didnt understand our level of stress and complexity here. They said “we take a test, we know right away what schools we qualify for” </p>
<p>While there are clearly negatives to that approach, there are also positives.</p>
<p>"Now, if it happens three times in a row, does it increase the chance it will happen again with lucky four? Can the experts who “brought” sense to this thread’s statistical iterations, build a simple equation for us, the poor minds who do not get probablilities? "</p>
<p>sigh.</p>
<p>My odds of drawing a straight flush are the same each time I draw (assume the pack is reshuffled each time). THE SAME.</p>
<p>BUT - the more times I draw, the higher the odds that at SOME point, I will draw a straight flush.</p>
<p>Sorry I cannot do the equation off the top of my head.</p>
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<p>There’s a lot of luck and serendipity and bloom-where-you’re-planted in life, and truly smart people will seize upon that, versus ***** that they haven’t gotten everything they’re entitled to. No one is entitled to a spot at HYPSM or anywhere else.</p>
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<p>Assuming an applicant is in the reasonable ballpark for a school, I don’t know why for ONE MINUTE they would assume their chances are anything other than what the stated acceptance rate is for that school. It’s a little tiresome to read the “their acceptance rate is 10%, but I had really high SAT’s so I figured I was a shoo-in!” and so forth. No. Your admission chances are the acceptance rate. Period. Stop trying to pretend that you’re so different!</p>
<p>thought experiment</p>
<p>five states are holding lotteries on the same day. Each has 1 million tickets to sell. Each has a million dollar payoff.</p>
<p>I offer to sell you ticket to one lottery. Pizzagirl offers to sell you one ticket to each of two lotteries. OP offers to sell you one ticket each to all FIVE lotteries.</p>
<p>Which offer do you pay more for? Do you pay each of us the same, because your odds in EACH lottery you enter are all the same, regardless of which package you buy?</p>
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<p>I am having a hard time with your use of the term independent events. Are you trying to say that knowing that a student was accepted at Harvard gives you absolutely no information about the probability that they were accepted at another Ivy? Are you trying to say that a student who was admitted to Harvard is not any more likely than anyone else to be admitted to Cornell? I am not following the logic.</p>
<p>I have to agree with other posters that the 2300+ and 3.9 gpa is not enough to get you into a top school (or Ivy). It is merely the first hurdle. I’m not sure if I missed the rest of the information in this thread but what did these kids do besides take tests and do homework? Remember the phrase, “All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.”</p>
<p>The OP only gave out 2 statistics–surely not enough for anyone to judge why they were not admitted. People that are referring to the high stats as an indicator of admission are forgetting that they are only looking at a correlation–there is no cause and effect. Past a certain level (2100?) you can not say one predicts the other. I imagine that it is really the other way around, really interesting and talented kids tend to have higher stats.</p>
<p>So IMO, if you want to get into an Ivy (or whatever you deem to be important) you need to be a really interesting and talented (in an area other than academics) kid. Once you have that part down, try to get a high GPA and SAT score. Being interesting and talented won’t be enough, you’ll have to have strong academics to go with it.</p>
<p>If you spend all of your time worrying about your grades or your “hook” you will take a lot of time away from what makes you interesting. If you spend a lot of time worrying about how unfair the admissions process is to you in particular, then that is probably not a school you should want to go to.</p>
<p>This narrow focus on HYPMS makes people very BORING!</p>
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<p>LOL! And wait until you decide who you’re in love with by basing it on a list of the best people to fall in love with!</p>
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<p>It is very simple. Harvard makes its decision based on what the H adcom sees. So does every school. Each one of the decisions is independent from the others, as one decision is not influenced by another one.</p>
<p><<lol! and=“” wait=“” until=“” you=“” decide=“” who=“” you’re=“” in=“” love=“” with=“” by=“” basing=“” it=“” on=“” a=“” list=“” of=“” the=“” best=“” people=“” to=“” fall=“” with!=“”>></lol!></p>
<p>And to come full-circle, pizzagirl, one should make sure to fall in love with someone who attended an Ivy league school. And, maybe, Phi Beta Kappa, GPA, grad school acceptances, and all that, should inform one’s decision of whom to marry, as well. Therein lies true and succcessful love.</p>
<p>“EXACTLY. Such a student clearly thinks that the Ivies are some kind of cut above that he’s failed to achieve and woe-is-he. I wouldn’t have any patience for that, either as expressed online or if the kid was sitting at my kitchen table.”</p>
<p>If I were an admissions officer, I certainly wouldn’t want him in the class I’m admitting. </p>
<p>Maybe he’ll go to Middlebury and get eaten by a bear (who has a special taste for Mongolians. I still don’t have any clue of what this “Asian” thing is.)</p>
<p>"There’s a lot of luck and serendipity and bloom-where-you’re-planted in life, and truly smart people will seize upon that, versus ***** that they haven’t gotten everything they’re entitled to. No one is entitled to a spot at HYPSM or anywhere else. "</p>
<p>A. I did not see any real whining, other than by implication, in the OP, and the OP has subsequently disowned any whining.</p>
<p>B. The same luck and serendipity etc can often motivate similar strategies - for example it may be worth pursuing LOTS of job leads, LOTS of networking opportunities, develop multiple job skills, etc. I think its a general rule, where the rewards to any given course of action are more uncertain, diversification is a wise, risk averse course. In building a financial portfolio its close to cost free. In terms of becoming skilled in multiple areas, its very costly. With college apps, its 80 bucks or so and writing (maybe) one more essay</p>
<p>C. Whether that luck and serendipity or such is worth whining about is a matter of opinion. I once had the opportunity to spend a little bit of time with one of our era’s most brilliant sociologists - Christopher Jencks, author of [Amazon.com:</a> Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America (9780465032648): Christopher Jencks: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Inequality-Reassessment-Effect-Schooling-America/dp/0465032648]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Inequality-Reassessment-Effect-Schooling-America/dp/0465032648) His research led him to believe there was in irreducible degree of randomness, serendipity, etc determining income inequality. His conclusion was not to tell people to lump it - it was to say that public policy should focus less on equalizing schooling as a solution to inequality, and more on directly addressing inequality by redistributing income. Today any hint of that and you are considered practically a Stalinist. We are where we are. </p>
<p>D. I think some people expect a greater measure of equity in the college admisions process, than in some other aspects of life, if only because the college admins themselve often claim some degree of equity, and often include individuals who advocated for equity in their other life activities. I know you dont entirely agree with me about what motivates college administrations, though. </p>
<p>E. the example of many other countries, who do their admissions pretty much by the numbers, is context for the american system. Of course they are eurocommies, so theres not much to learn from them 
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<p>F. For some of us, the existence of a (alleged) bias in admissions against particular racial or religious groups, even when those groups are “well represented anyway” is reprehensible (at least where those groups have never themselves been privileged in this country). Not all of us share that POV, however.</p>
<p>"Assuming an applicant is in the reasonable ballpark for a school, I don’t know why for ONE MINUTE they would assume their chances are anything other than what the stated acceptance rate is for that school. It’s a little tiresome to read the “their acceptance rate is 10%, but I had really high SAT’s so I figured I was a shoo-in!” and so forth. No. Your admission chances are the acceptance rate. Period. Stop trying to pretend that you’re so different! "</p>
<p>That would make my case even stronger. I was merely suggesting that EVEN IF one could refine the acceptance rate, there is an irreducible element of randomness. if one cannot, and can only use the acceptance rate, than applying to multiple schools to increase ones chances is MORE rational than otherwise.</p>
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<p>Schools don’t rank because they find that it takes away from the student’s education. If a student is merely worried about GPA it will take away from their other interests. The HS’s want the students to take a few risks and not just take classes that will make them #1 or that they may not get an A in. Risk takers tend to be more interesting and better at thinking out of the box. They often have a lot more to bring to the table.</p>
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None.
State lotteries are not prestigious.</p>
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<p>Oh, that would be a hard example to use. Fwiw, I believe that you’d have 40 chances of the total possibilities of 52!/(5!</p>
<p>Re post #206:</p>
<p>If a lottery ticket sells for $1, then your single ticket is worth $1, and OP is offering $5 worth of tickets. In any case, the odds are remarkably small that any of those will be a winning ticket. If I go out and buy 50 lottery tickets, and then complain that I haven’t won a single lottery – and that the same is true of each of 5 friends who like me, are right-handed middle aged women, so therefore the lottery is rigged against right-handed women…</p>
<p>well obviously my position is untenable.</p>
<p>In order to even get to the point of a statistical anomaly, OP would have to have enough lottery tickets (college apps) to get to the point of significant odds in favor of admission, as opposed to odds against. That is, it doesn’t help to increase his odds from 8% to 18% or even to 30% – in all those cases the odds still favor rejection. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t buy lottery tickets under such a scenario. I mean, my state has a lottery, I need money, I know that the “odds” of winning would be much better if I were to buy 10,000 tickets than if I buy only 1 or 2 — and yet most of the time I don’t buy any. Why? Because if I have $10,000 to invest, then there are plenty of safer investments, where the odds of return are much greater. It is true that those investments don’t promise to make me a millionaire… but the point is that if I am going to make a decision based on probability or odds, it helps to find situations where the odds are in my favor rather than running against me.</p>
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<p>But the applicants are not independent.</p>
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<p>That makes no difference. It is the same applicant subject to a number of independent decisions. The applicant is not defining the outcome; the selection committee is, and each school is independent from all the others.</p>
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<p>Really? I think a student who gets into 4 top 20 schools AND 2 top 10 LAC’s should be shouting from the rooftops, planting himself face first in all the ice cream he can eat, dancing around the town … not spending one minute worrying about where he didn’t get in. And I think it’s incumbent on parents / adults to counsel kids that way as well, to develop a winning attitude (“I rocked!! this is fabulous! go me!!”) rather than cultivate the attitude that you missed out on something.</p>