<p>More mysterious than the meaning behind the answer to life the universe and everything (42), and not quite as mysterious as the question of how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop, what does it actually take to get into an Ivy league (or other school of similar academic caliber)?</p>
<p>Since I was a wee lad I've never considered it a possibility. It was something for the people only spoken of in legends. Sure you could be (or I could be) smart, but that doesn't cut it with the elite of the elite. You could be captain of the varsity sovver team but that's truly not good enough. You could stop world hunger, cure cancer, end genocide and war, find a unifying theory between quantum mechanics and special relativity (in addition to maintaining a 6.00 GPA and a 2400 on the SAT) and all that would run through the minds of adcoms at the top schools would be that your personal philharmonic orchestra that you conduct was off key for a fraction of a second.</p>
<p>In seriousness though, it was never an achievable dream to attend a top school. I'm beginning to question the existence of this "Harvard" place.</p>
<p>So assuming they exist at all and aren't just one big conspiracy (to do what exactly?), what does it really take to get into one?</p>
<p>douglas adams fan, eh?
I say you adhere to rule of 42. Your name must have 42 letters. You must have 42 EC’s. You must win 42 national awards, and so on. The Ivy’s will love you!</p>
<p>Seriously? Has anyone not read the multiple posts that question how much it costs to get in? Bad attempt at mocking people’s desperation to get in…my bad.</p>
<p>I’ve known great people to get in, and great people to get rejected. Sometimes it SEEMS like probablity, but you are in control. I think its all in the mind set and how you come across. Two people with identical stats and accomplishments could come across completely different in admissions. Person A may “list” accomplishments, while person B notes them in a personal way. It’s difficult to say what it takes, because I’d say it’s more of a personal level type deal. Just know who you are and why your a fit, not how can you get in. As obvious as it sounds, but those are the people who I have seen succeed the most in the process. Good luck!</p>
<p>My recommendation is be yourself and do what you love, and of course work hard in school. I was accepted to 3 ivy league schools and waitlisted at another, and those are the only rules I went by. I didn’t even really know what the ivy league was until senior year… So I certainly wasn’t a “bred for greatness” type. Just pursue what you love. :)</p>
<p>ATLs09: You mean the application fee? Less than $100 is hardly exorbinant.</p>
<p>If you mean the cost of tuition, there’s this little thing called FINANCIAL AID. In fact, for many lower income students it is actually more affordable to attend an Ivy. (Ex. there’s no EFC at Harvard for those making under $60k)</p>
<p>You’re talking BS. Read some books and info from actual adcomms: they don’t care about your status, they just care about what you’ve done with the situation handed to you. Unless your a Developmental Candidate, money usually does more harm than good when it comes to admissions.</p>
<p>Same as spun. I didn’t try to do any of the things the over-obsessed students at this board are doing, and I didn’t know the ivies until senior year. Knowing my stats, it’s surprising that I even got wait listed at an ivy. There’s no set formula to get in.</p>
<p>i’ve never studied, never stressed out about school, had a 520 on the math portion of the SATs and didn’t take high school as seriously as i could have, but i was accepted. </p>
<p>the adcoms are pretty good at ascertaining if you’d be a good fit for the school (which is really what it comes down to) given that the applicant pool is loaded with 2400 SAT scores and perfect gpas.</p>
<p>40% plus at ever ivy are recruited athletes, legacies, URMs or development (rich/famous). Clearly, being one of those things would be a big first step. If you fall into one of these categories and have the stats, you’re in good shape.</p>
<p>After that the schools want kids from every state and as many countries as possible. They want some low income, first generastion kids and kids from underperforming high schools. So if you are a low income kids from an underperforming North Dakota HS, you’re also looking good.</p>
<p>By the time the get to the white/Asian kids from well represented states there are not many seats left. These kids must bring up the stats as those of the hooked candidates average lower than where the schools want to end up. So very high stats are important here.</p>
<p>Next we get to the essay and recs. The big issue they face is choosing between the thousands of kids who all have high stats and read pretty similarly. The have taken 10 AP’s, have 2300 plus, are val or sal, president of 4 clubs and have hours and hours of community service. This is when doing something different/better/world class comes in and having it reflected in what you and your school write.</p>
<p>Of course every year there are some that defy the odds. They play an instrument the band needs badly, their art supplement showed extreme talent or their essay was so amazing it made grown adcom weep.</p>
<p>The 40% stat is widely published and is detailed in many books including A is For Admission and The Price Of Admission. It’s actually higher at the smaller ivies.</p>
<p>Here’s a quote from a Daily Beast article and a link to the full article:</p>
<p>Michele Hernandez, nationally known private college admissions consultant located in Vermont. Author of the book A is Admissions: The Insider’s Guide to Getting into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges and former admissions officer at Dartmouth College</p>
<p>“40 percent of every Ivy League school is filled up with special cases: athletes, minorities, low-income, legacies or development cases. They’re tagged, and schools lower the admissions standards a lot for those kids. So you got to know how to use those tags to your advantage. If you’re a legacy and you apply early to the school, you’ve got a 50 percent better chance of getting in.</p>
<p>Harvard doesn’t actually exist. The idea of Harvard was the invention of a Nigerian gentleman who came up with the notion after people stopped falling for his claim that large sums of money awaited them for assisting him with the transport of even larger sums across international borders.</p>