waitlisted to northwestern, what does this mean for other top-tier schools? I am really scared

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northwestern University
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menloparkmom your lottery logic is a bit flawed. Lotteries are 100% random and have 0 basis on skill or luck. To compare college admissions to a lottery might seem like an amusing hyperbole to use, because it really does seem like a crapshoot, like a “lottery,” when this is in fact not the case. Admission to one school is not independent of admission to another school, because an admissible student is a good student in each of the adcom tables.

But also, your logic is wrong in a second sense because if you purchased lottery tickets in 11 different states, your odds of winning a lottery WOULD in fact go up. Because you now have 11 chances of winning a lottery, rather than 1. In fact, purchasing 11 lottery tickets in the same lottery vs purchasing 11 separate tickets in separate lotteries would be roughly the same probability of winning (in both cases greater than purchasing 1), provided that we say that each lottery has a roughly equal likelihood of winning.

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lol she got into MIT via EA and went ahead and applied to HYPS. She said she would only consider H and S over MIT, but wanted Princeton and Yale so she could game the other schools for more financial aid

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@adezar2‌ Where did she end up going?

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ib – first of all, wait list at NU does not have any bearing on your chances at other schools.

Second, there was an article published in the NY Times a week or so ago, dealing with ‘chances’ in life for those who do not go to one of the “Stanfords” of the world. You should be able to find it with a little googling. It may be the best article on college admissions I’ve ever read. I strongly recommend it to you.

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…and that article is http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-how-to-survive-the-college-admissions-madness.html?_r=0

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Thanks for finding it!!!

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Not at all harder, actually. Almost irrelevant. They look at your academic record, and your GMAT score, plus any work experience (which is highly recommended. The best MBA programs generally prefer at least 5 years of experience after college)

Take a look at this profile of the Harvard MBA class of 2016:
http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/class-profile/Pages/default.aspx

Notice average age of 27 (about 5 years out of college)
Notice GMAT scores and GPA.
Notice all the state schools… nope, they don’t mention that because it doesn’t matter.

Also, I see that you have been accepted to both Georgia Tech and Johns Hopkins. No need to stress, those two schools are extremely highly respected. You can accomplish anything with a degree from either one. At Johns Hopkins you will probably work harder than at Northwestern (or Harvard). JHU is very proud of its demanding curriculum.

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@NROTCgrad‌ No lol I was not accepted to JHU. Decisions come out on the 27th of March. I was accepted to Northeastern, RPI, and SBU (along with GTech), but I am assuming your advice still holds.

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Okay, my mistake.

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@NROTCgrad‌ What kind of work experience? Like in what sector? Does it have to be business-oriented, or can it be unrelated like a position in a software company? (I plan to major in CS for undergraduate, and if the school offers undergraduate business like Northeastern, I might do a combined-plan degree)

And then I want to pose the question. If getting into MBA is not determined by UG university, why do so many seek to attend prestigious universities (like I do) if it is largely irrelevant when considering business school, or am I assuming your theory holds true for law school, medical school, and other graduate programs as well?

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I mean if you think about this logically, many seekers of prestigious universities are most likely high-achievers and dream big. This also perhaps means that many seek higher salaries and positions, which in a lot of cases requires procurement of a professional degree of some sorts. So many top-tier university applicants (myself included) intend to pursue professional degree. If it doesn’t matter what undergrad one goes to in order to get to the professional degree, why blow $60000 a year in the first place?

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Take a look at that Harvard MBA webpage again. It shows the industries (which is very diverse). I suggest you choose an industry that you like.

Notice that 40% of MBA students at Harvard are STEM majors. The number one correlation of success in an MBA program is mathematical skill.

Because they want the challenge, and also to be around other extremely intelligent people.

Yes. It holds, given similar GPA and performance in other entrance requirements.

Because: a) their family can afford it and wants them to attend, or b) as Harvard claims, 90% of American families will pay about the same cost to attend Harvard as their state school.
https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works/cost-attendance
Many elite schools guarantee to meet 100% of demonstrated need (often without loans).

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@NROTCgrad‌ Hmm. Are you positive this process is not being oversimplified? Especially the last reasoning you gave. Not every school is Harvard. I want to go to CMU SCS (very very prestigious in terms of CS department, but CMU is notorious for extremely bad financial aid).

I think Harvard is also a bit of an extreme, being one of the most prestigious and second most selective university in the US.

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Over course it is being oversimplified. Yet the fact of the matter is that smart people do not spend extra tuition – especially money that they do not have – attending colleges that they cannot actually afford. Occasionally people make the mistake of taking out heavy loans to attend expensive schools. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. Money is a huge factor at elite schools. Tons of equally talented students attend state universities.

To make an analogy, people don’t buy a Mercedes Benz in order to have a better commute to the office. Either they really like what Mercedes has to offer, or they want the status (usually the latter, but BMW drivers tend to choose the former). They pay handsomely for whatever makes a Benz special. A Camry will get them to work just as quickly, at less than half the price, plus is both more reliable and more durable.

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@NROTCgrad‌ Alright after major research, I may have unfortunately (for me as well) disproven what you claim. According to statistical analysis by Poets and Quants, shown here for Stanford Business School (just an example, you can look up similar analysis): http://poetsandquants.com/2012/05/30/top-feeder-colleges-to-stanford-b-school/2/

A majority are top-ranking prestigious institutions.

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Actually undergraduate institutions do determine likelihood of admission to prestigious business schools. Northwestern is the most represented university in both the classes in the Kellogg school of management and the Booth school of business (UChicago).

http://poetsandquants.com/2011/10/06/top-feeder-colleges-to-chicago-booth/

http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/07/top-feeder-schools-to-whartons-mba-program/

another piece: http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/08/getting-into-wharton-does-college-work-pedigree-trump-merit/

But these are also most trends of admitted students to these M7 business schools. You can still definitely get into a school like this from GT or UMich or UVA.

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Actually, that’s not relevant. We have to compare how many applied versus how many got accepted. And that has to include a comparison of GMAT and GPA scores.

If it can be shown that Stanford, or any other elite MBA program, rejects a higher percentage of state university students with stats similar to elite schools, then it would be strong evidence of a true advantage given to elite schools.

It is well known that students going to elite schools are highly ambitious and highly intelligent. Thus they are more likely to apply to elite graduate programs than state schools students. Yes, this means they will be overrepresented, but does not mean that it is easier for them to get into a graduate program than it is for an equally ambitious, and equally intelligent, state school student.

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@lb43823, if you look at the full list of feeders to Chicago Booth, you’ll see that UMich sent as many to Booth as Yale, UMich & UW-Madison sent more to Booth than Harvard, and UMich, UW-Madison, and UVa sent more to Booth than Princeton or Stanford:
http://poetsandquants.com/2011/10/06/top-feeder-colleges-to-chicago-booth/2/

Granted, those state schools are much bigger, but it means that the top students at those schools do as well as students at elites. Plus, Cornell (only a little smaller than UVa and about half the size of UMich and UW-Madison) doesn’t even make the list, meaning that even on a rate basis, those state schools do better.

(BTW, while I’d put RPI and GTech on the same level as UW-Madison, I’d put UMich and UVa higher).

And OSU, BU, UCLA, UGa, & BC send at least 5 each to Booth.

OK, granted, the top 2 b-schools are HBS and Stanford, and the Ivies/equivalents and top publics really dominate there, though UT-Austin, UCLA, BYU, & UIUC send at least 9 to HBS. UT-Austin and UCLA also send at least 7 to smaller Stanford GSB.

If you want even more hope, take a look at Cornell’s list:
http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/31/top-feeder-colleges-to-cornells-johnson-school/2/

Cornell isn’t M7, but they are in the top 15, and both UConn and SUNY-Stony Brook are among the top 7 feeders to Cornell and they’re arguably below RPI/GTech/NEU.

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Let us also remember that:

  1. The Ross School of Business at U.Michigan is itself considered elite. So is Cal’s Haas School, and UVa’s Darden. Fully seven of the top 20 Businessweek MBA programs are at public universities.

  2. Only about 40% of Fortune 500 CEOs have an MBA. It is not necessary for success in business. In fact, it remains a point of controversy whether an MBA is worth the financial cost (personally I think it is, but it is not a settled matter).

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Also look at this list of the CEOs of America’s ten largest corporations. Only one has their undergrad degree from an elite private university. Yet, most do have MBA’s from elite programs.

http://www.businessinsider.com/where-fortune-500-ceos-went-to-college-2015-3