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So they have to come up with safeties, but what is an acceptable safety if you think you "should" get into Ivy?
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<p>It does seem unfair doesn't it. Way back in the dark ages, U Penn was my safety!</p>
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So they have to come up with safeties, but what is an acceptable safety if you think you "should" get into Ivy?
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<p>It does seem unfair doesn't it. Way back in the dark ages, U Penn was my safety!</p>
<p>U Penn doesn't like to be called U Penn apparently. One of their admissions officers corrected me and said they prefer "Penn." I guess the U destroys their special "ivy" status? lol</p>
<p>re: 2400 girl</p>
<p>as proof that ivies look beyond SAT scores, i would cite the harvard rep, who told me during an info session that they reject over 50% of all applicants with perfect SAT scores.</p>
<p>that pretty much closes the case: SATs are only a small part of the larger picture.</p>
<p>true!</p>
<p>high scores won't get you in, but low scores will surely get you out!</p>
<p>however if you are what they want, your scores can be way less than perfect. know some who got into ivies with act<25 (not legacies either)</p>
<p>Those applicants shouldn't be called "super" if it weren't for their outstanding ec's.</p>
<p>They do have outstanding ECs, which makes them "super."</p>
<p>This is making me sick. Getting into college is now one big formula...no more real interest involved. People are becoming machines...</p>
<p>I think we all know ppl who are more impressive than the kids in the article. That said, they are far above the average student. Even the ones who probably won't get into the top tier schools they're applying to are shoo-ins at even slightly less-known/selective colleges.</p>
<p>I'm looking at those stats, and just crying a bit inside, cause I know there is no possible way I could ever match that.</p>
<p>Cvjn</p>
<p>It's not all about "stats". Dry your eyes.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>U Penn doesn't like to be called U Penn apparently<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>I've heard that too, which kinda makes me wonder why they chose "upenn.edu" for their domain name. If someone calls them U Penn it's their own fault.</p>
<p>BurnThis,</p>
<p>There are plenty of other schools for kids with Ivy-type numbers -- places where they would thrive. There are ample threads with other schools so I won't bore everyone here with yet another recitation. Heaven knows the Ivies could fill their classes several times over with kids with amazing stats, ECs, etc. But in life, we also don't always get everything we deserve (or think we deserve). </p>
<p>My junior has decided that Ivies are not for him -- even though a couple of them are tops for his intended major, and his dad is a two-degree legacy at one (from back in the good ol' days when Ivies gave major merit awards for undergrad and grad school). DS's numbers, GPA, strength of schedule and ECs would put him towards the highly competitive end of the pool.</p>
<p>Part of my son's reasoning is that he wants small and quirky, with a big undergrad and teaching focus, part of it is that he doesn't buy into the Ivy prestige factor. That said, he is looking at several other top schools, but they just aren't Ivy. His decision didn't really surprise me. This is who he is.</p>
<p>I think that too many applicants (including some in this article) are just doing all of the ECs to stack their résumés. I do my ECs because they are what I like doing, not what colleges would like me to do. Unfortunately, most adcoms don't see the human element of the application.</p>
<p>Hepstar</p>
<p>I'm hoping you're wrong. I think they (admissions committee) will see your genuine interests (and my son's) shining through on your (and his) application if you present it well. Tell me the truth; when you see an EC list a mile long, do your eyes glaze over? Mine do. I'd rather see a shorter, more believable list with a few true interests followed for several years than a page-long laundry list.</p>
<p>I think that the most "human" part of the application is the essay. It is your one real chance to express who you are beyond your SAT and GPA. Besides that, as much as anyone would like to believe otherwise, colleges really don't know what kind of person you are besides your ECs and stats. Just about everyone who applies to a college embellishes his or her achievements to some degree. You have to make yourself look as good as possible for the adcoms. Colleges, for the most part, will only know what you're really like once you're enrolled at a school. If this isn't rue, why are there always students at even the top colleges getting into trouble (does Duke lacrosse ring a bell)? Even if they didn't commit the rape, they still should not have been throwing the crazy parties that they were throwing.</p>
<p>Speaking of super-applicants, there is this student in my school who moved here from Central America who is amazing. He has a 2270 SAT (including an 800 on the Writing w/a 12 essay, amazing since he is from another country), the new #1 student in my class, and is a minority. He even volunteers to teach us Calculus when our teacher is absent. As for the human dimension of the application that is often overlooked, he is one of the nicest, most modest people you'll ever meet. When people congratulated him on having the highest 1st quarter average, he wasn't even aware of it. He is applying to some pretty competitive schools (Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon to name a few) and I wish him the best of luck.</p>
<p>i don't get it, how are these people "super applicants"?...they seem ordinary to me...only two people with >2300, and no distinctions such as USAMO/MOP/IMO, TASP, USAPHO, USABO or anything like that...</p>
<p>that girl (first one on page 1) with the Columbia research project seems like the strongest candidate</p>
<p>I like the boy who found out a way to date croccedile teeth. I mean, come on, that's pretty neat. He's only in high school and already he's made a huge contribution to the field he probably will pursue. If I were an admissions person and was choosing only one of them, I would probably pick him.
Shobhit2006--I think that your thinking that they are ordinary is kind of the point of the aritcle. You're right, they're actually almost ordinary for applicants to HYPS. That's the point; they're outstanding, yet average.
Even with the numbers game and everything, I still think that you can see some children whom are truly outstanding. I know a girl like that; she's thirteen and has played a solo at Carnegie Hall. If you forget about the numbers, you can see that students aren't really that different from who they used to be; it's just their numbers that are different.</p>
<p>I didn't think it was about the numbers, but the accomplishments.</p>
<p>It's articles like this one that made me stop my NY Magazine subscription ten years ago. The mag. caters to what they call the elite, lacks diversity and you can tell that they will include only one black, asian or any other person of color in their articles and frequently they are not the best rep. they could possibly find for said article. Last year, my daughter's private school had five admits to Harvard, three African-Americans, but you could
search high and low and never find any mention of our school in their articles on private schools. They are interested in teen-age sex, drug use and fashion and feature at least two or three articles a year on that subject. The mag. is an elitist rag and not representive of most New York students. I hope people have the good sense not to take this BS seriously. There are a lot of students with schools to go with them.</p>