<p>Any communication would be a violation of anti-trust regulations (and they aren't stupid enough to flaunt the law that blatantly). There was an issue a few years ago where Princeton tried to hack into Yale's database to get the accepted student list though...
On another note, I'm not sure how rare it is for students to get into all 3. I did and I'm not really anything special.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, is it correct that your intended major would be a factor in your admission? I asked this a while back and people told me it had no effect. If this were true, would it be easier to get in if you applied with a less popular major? </p>
<p>Thanks for the replies so far, they really help! :)</p>
<p>h-bomber you are being modest. It does seem less likely that a student gets in to all three eventhough I see few on cc. You must have been very special and very lucky too! In your opinion what do you think that was unique in your stats that got you in all three? passion, leadership, legacy, region, international awards, low econ...etc. thank you.</p>
<p>My DD was accepted to all three last year. I really think that they are looking for the same type of student. Anecdotally, DD commented that she saw many of the same students at the H and Y newly admitted student functions (Bulldog days and PreFrosh).</p>
<p>MSMDAD, what was very special about her? would you share your D special talent or type and others that got in to all three? What same type of students are they looking for? what is your opinion?
thank you?</p>
<p>J mom, I am going to PM you.</p>
<p>MSMDAD, can you also PM me as well to answer J mom's question? I would really be interested to know. Thank you so much!</p>
<p>"There's just no way to craft an objective rationale for why one applicant may be accepted and another denied, or why an individual might get in at one school but not at another."</p>
<p>Not really. Adcoms from HYP have personally told me that the admissions process is not a crapshoot. If it were, they wouldn't have jobs. It just seems like one because you are unaware of the strengths and weaknesses of your fellow competitors. A rationale, while sometimes not throughly evident, is behind every decision.</p>
<p>"Then you'd choose 1,500 or so to admit, realizing that the next 1,500 could have been just about as qualified, as would the next 1,500 after that."</p>
<p>Again, I have doubts that the next class of 1500 would be in the same caliber as the first. There is a limit on the number of talent that circulates among the applicant school year to year. For example, the extreme cream of the crop would be the Intel/Siemens winners, Olympiad medalists, Internationally renowned musicians/athletes. Taken together, each college at max would be able to attract about 50-100 of these so called geniuses/prodigies. Everyone else would be next tier and so on.</p>
<p>Just thought I'd add that I am, to my great displeasure, one of the supposedly mythical cross admits to each of HYP. Any argument that each school looks for students that fit a certain profile that is unique to that school is totally impossible. How could I have been just what each school needed? The veracity of the statement that they select for kids who are the "right fit" for the respective school is dubious at best, it seems to me. I also saw a lot of the same people at each school's preview weekend.</p>
<p>so tell us your stat oclocrat and who ever wants to be admitted to HYP will follow. I am serious, please tell us your stat?</p>
<p>also tell us about those "same people" too :-)</p>
<p>Disagreeing with some of what is said above, I will note for the record that I just attended the most recent Harvard on-campus information session (Friday afternoon) and the admission officer who spoke there said that Harvard could admit two, or even three, entering classes of entirely distinct membership from among the students who are NOT admitted to Harvard each year, and still have an equally good entering class. She said the reason she can sleep at night, knowing that her office declines to offer admission to many outstanding students, is that she knows even the rejected students in the Harvard application pool generally end up at great colleges. Yes, each office at each college attempts to build the best class it can, which means it doesn't prefer worse applicants to better applicants, but there isn't any deterministic formula for getting into any of the most highly desirable colleges.</p>
<p>Tokenadult, I assume your post was directed towards me, and normally, I would defer to your knowledge seeing that you are quite obsessive over college admissions and math (since I see you on AoPS too :D).</p>
<p>However, this time I would blatantly disagree.</p>
<p>"the admission officer who spoke there said that Harvard could admit two, or even three, entering classes of entirely distinct membership from among the students who are NOT admitted to Harvard each year, and still have an equally good entering class."</p>
<p>I guess you don't keep up with politics much. Many adcoms say this to make all the applicants feel better and to bolster their school image, but in life there is a difference between what people say and what people do. Harvard can literally say what they will about how many classes they can admit of an equal caliber, but the truth is, they only end up admitting one and only one class. They never have to test their hypothesis, lest validate it. So essentially what you are hearing at the info seminar is pretty language, which is expected at an info seminar in the first place. </p>
<p>"She said the reason she can sleep at night, knowing that her office declines to offer admission to many outstanding students, is that she knows even the rejected students in the Harvard application pool generally end up at great colleges."</p>
<p>I am sure that is the reason why she can sleep at night. :)</p>
<p>"Yes, each office at each college attempts to build the best class it can, which means it doesn't prefer worse applicants to better applicants, but there isn't any deterministic formula for getting into any of the most highly desirable colleges."</p>
<p>I would agree with you on that there isn't a deterministic formula, but let us examine your first statement. "Each office at each college attempts to build the best class it can, which means it doesn't prefer worse applicants to better applicants." This remark makes no sense at all. They prefer students who they think are the most desirable in one way or other, and in this context that is what defines "best." Most are probably there because they are academically superior, others because they can play football, and still others because they enrich campus life. Each person could even be a combination of the three. But rest assured, Harvard, just like any other college, is looking for the best, and there are, although not always definite, standards to whom those people are.</p>
<p>Do you think that an intended major of Computer Science would boost/hurt chances at HYP?</p>
<p>Hi, kyzan, having just been to Harvard on Friday, I was specifically disagreeing with your statement </p>
<p>
[quote]
I have doubts that the next class of 1500 would be in the same caliber as the first.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, all right, I'm not disagreeing that that is what you doubt :) , because you know better than I do what you think, but I have already related the statement from the Harvard admission officer that she doesn't think there is any huge drop-off in quality among the top few thousand rejected applicants as compared to the no more than 2,000 admitted applicants. When I posted in this thread, I wasn't referring to my notes of the info session last Friday but only to my recollection. After checking my notes, I just posted in a separate thread a report on the information session in which I attribute to the admission officer this statement: "We're blessed to have so many wonderful applicants. We could fill three or four freshman classes each year, and each would be just as good as the class we admit." </p>
<p>Thank you for your kind words about my involvement in math coaching. I was actually quite impressed with how high the level of unknown teams on the east coast is compared to the better teams in Minnesota, so I figure I'll have to redouble my efforts in my competition math training program. But referring to your idea, with which I agree, that a football player is not directly compared to a math competitor, I would also say that not all future mathematicians, even the really brilliant ones, have the same competition record. I don't disparage math competition involvement, but I know some Ph.D. mathematicians who do, and there are still some outstanding pure mathematicians (not to mention applied mathematicians, computer scientists, and economists) who don't participate in competition programs. So even when Harvard attempts to admit the very best applicants with a liking for math, as I'm sure it does (with great success) every year, the admission office could say, honestly and without pretty language, that it knows some great future mathematicians who would have thrived at Harvard are getting away. (Sometimes those students end up studying math in Harvard's graduate programs.) </p>
<p>Perhaps you have seen Malcolm Gladwell's review of Jerome Karabel's book The Chosen. </p>
<p>gladwell</a> dot com - getting in </p>
<p>College admission is a complicated business. It is especially complicated when an admission office attempts, to use the memorable phrase of CC participant Hanna, to admit not only the next president of the Navajo Nation but also the next president of Goldman Sachs. Of course a statement on the part of an admission officer that many of the applicants who didn't gain an offer of admission are outstanding, fine students with a great future is a statement meant to reassure applicants. But I think it is also an honest statement. </p>
<p>You're applying this year, right? Good luck. You seem to have been thinking for a while about how to prepare for a challenging college experience. </p>
<p>To the OP, I would say just try to be the best high school student, academically ready and involved in your community, that you can be. Don't worry about any "branding" differences you might try to acquire to shape your application for one college or another. Pursue the interests that are important to you, and don't let the preferences of any particular college--if those are even knowable--dictate how you live your life in high school. Apply to all colleges of interest, and take care to assemble your applications well. Compare offers after you find out where you are admitted. Good luck to you, too.</p>
<p>There are certainly many ways for math students to distinguish themselves and their passion for the subject besides doing AMC/ARML/etc. competitions. TokenAdult -- :)</p>
<p>Personally, I don't know that it's worth the effort to read tea leaves to figure out what the differences are between 'branding'/admissions criteria at HPY. Frankly, neither do I care. Do your best in your classes, apply wisely and well, devote significant time and effort to your essays, and find ways to express your passion (yes, that horrid overused word) so that what you say on paper and what you've done form a complete picture of who you are and what you value. Nuture your interests early and water them well -- they can bear terrific fruit come senior year.</p>
<p>Northstarmom: Yale actually has FAR more humanities majors than science majors...ditto for accepted students. I think that's sort of unique to Yale, but I know the administration is always worried about beefing up our science!</p>
<p>I don't think HYP consult particular majors to find out what kind of students they should accept. Prospective majors listed on applications are so tentative and variable that such a strategy would not likely be successful. The notion that a college, or at least HYP, is looking for a tuba player (etc.) is a popular attempt to oversimplify why some people are accepted and others aren't. With that said, it's patently clear that yale is looking to improve its standing in the sciences, and i have on decent information that science oriented students are filling classrooms in higher numbers than in the past.</p>
<p>If HYP doesn't work it wont be the end of the world guys lol</p>
<p>cannot agree with you more. However, I think it would be nice to be accepted to one of those colleges.</p>