<p>I think it’s all about thickness of kneepads!
(jk)</p>
<p>But I thought that the colleges compared you to the rest of the nation- not the other members of the school.</p>
<p>Even if the kids had a higher test score on IPhO (w/e that is…), why would that have stopped you from getting in?</p>
<p>And whats with the scatterplots that everybody talks about? Where can you see them?</p>
<p>This is true, but many top colleges have an admissions officer who focuses on BSes exclusively. So you’re more competing against these students than just everyone. And when it comes to diversity, one can’t take <em>too</em> many students from the same school. So if people at your school are more desirable than you, this hurts your chances somewhat, even though it’s said that perhaps 75% of students at top BSes are qualified to attend an Ivy League school. IPhO is the International Physics Olympiad - to be invited to the training camp for that implies you’re one of the top few students in the country at physics, and it’s a basis of comparison that means more than just receiving an award from one’s school. So if enough people had more interesting hooks than me, particularly from Andover, even though I was a relatively strong candidate, it would lower my desirability.</p>
<p>Lots of times there’s competition within the school. I know that at my school (or former school) only 1 person got into Harvard, Yale , Princeton, Stanford, etc. Every year one kid would get into all of them and then the other top students would go to really good top 20 schools and all. But not the very top. </p>
<p>Maybe 2 people some years, (only if there’s a really smart URM though)</p>
<p>At Andover, while we were applying to college, we had access to scatterplots for each school showing the GPA and SAT of each applicant to the school over the past few years, as well as the admission decision. So this means we could see the patterns and what our chances were. So one can tell that the majority of HYP admits were very high up on both scales, though some were low enough that they obviously have a very strong hook (URM, athlete, legacy, etc.). Nevertheless, it seemed that at least 50% of Ivy admits were from people who were in the upper echelons of the school. Some of these might be legacy (I know one who was and got into Harvard, probably as a result), but a lot of them are not. Also, one can’t be legacy at more than a couple schools, and many of these students get into multiple Ivies.</p>
<p>Uroogla, you must be the beastliest beast who’s ever beasted!</p>
<p>I think that my former school was about the same. We had about 5 going to Ivy’s, but they were all URM’s.</p>
<p>And on a COMPLETELY unrelated note…
What kind of SAT prep was offered at Andover?
Hotchkiss was like “we think education is the best SAT prep, but we do still let an outside contracter come in and help people”
Did you do it?
If yes, did it help?</p>
<p>Andover similarly believed that education is the best SAT prep. If one needs more, one buys or borrows books and works through them. Some people take classes during breaks, but none of them are through Andover, that I know of.</p>