<p>I've seen people who apply to a few schools realistically that they want to get into, and stand a decent chance of being accepted at. These people also throw in a Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Dartmouth, etc. application, just for the fun of it.</p>
<p>How often are these random applications at incredibly impressive schools accepted? Never? Sometimes?</p>
<p>Bump. Come on, none of you guys got lucky?</p>
<p>Ballsy application (on January 1st, no less) EDII to Vandy with a 3.0–accepted!</p>
<p>Rarely if you’re talking about kids without the stats. These schools can only take a fraction of their highly qualified applicants. A typical admissions team at these schools is in pain over the unbelievable applicants they have no choice but to reject for lack of pain.</p>
<p>Of course colleges do have their own institutional needs. So a few low stats applicants will get in if they are from a state or an inner city area the college wants representation from or a similar case.</p>
<p>^Or maybe an applicant has something that sets him/her apart (life experience, amazing essay, great personality, godlike ECs, etc.) from the thousands of near-identical applicants who are valedictorian/2300/founder of 13351 clubs. </p>
<p>Some examples:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/615741-i-got-into-stanford-3-4-gpa-possible.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/615741-i-got-into-stanford-3-4-gpa-possible.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/649604-i-got-without-3-7-gpa-club.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/649604-i-got-without-3-7-gpa-club.html</a> A couple of kids in this thread actually got into really good schools like Cornell, Michigan, Emory, etc. with <3.5 GPAs and no hooks.</p>
<p>Also, an amazing athlete can compensate for lack of an amazing GPA if other stats show they are capable. For example, their SATs are in the ball park and their class rigor is good (reasonable number of AP classes) but maybe they get mostly B’s because they are spending too much time on sports travel and training. </p>
<p>In general, if you don’t have some kind of hook like mentioned above, or you’re not an amazing athletic, or you don’t represent some type of diversity that the campus is strategically seeking, or you’re not a full pay, don’t count on getting too lucky in the admissions game.</p>
<p>Post #5 covers all the myths. Great personality? These are simply untrue.</p>
<p>Post #5 is misleading. The person in the Stanford post actually has 3.75 GPA and not 3.4.</p>
<p>I was just making examples of other factors that might come into play when I said life experience, essay, personality, etc. I didn’t mean that someone with a great personality could get into a top school with stats like a 2.0 GPA and 1500/2400. What I meant to say is that it’s possible that those things might be able to hold some weight, although I’ll never know if that’s truly the case.</p>
<p>I mean, it depends on one’s own self-image as much as anything. I can say that I was shocked–shocked!–to be accepted, but while it was definitely surprising, I knew I was in range. If I had the same application but done a lot less research/taken to heart the discouragement of “oh, nobody makes it, pretty much no one has a chance” I might’ve been shocked. Would’ve been the same applicant and the same application, though.</p>