What is the profile of an "Ivy caliber" applicant?

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

I am also thinking that there are a lot of Ivy caliber students who don’t bother to apply to Ivies because they prefer to stay closer to home. That would be true especially in CA where the UCs are a big draw.

</p>

<p>It’s also true in the midwest / the states of the Big 10 schools, where it is not at all considered unusual or a “failure” for a valedictorian who is quite accomplished to want to go to the state public. Especially given the good price / value of that choice.</p>

[menloparkmom]

<p>^ additional info, I just added up the college decisions information for the 2007-2009 classes, and 72%[ 72/100] of Menlo students accepted at HYPSM ,matriculated at those colleges.</p>

<p>And the matriculation rate for the same period for Menlo students at UCB and UCLA is around 25%.[ that surprised me]</p>

<p>“I am also thinking that there are a lot of Ivy caliber students who don’t bother to apply to Ivies because they prefer to stay closer to home.”
…like my son, who although he was accepted at 2 Ivy’s, did decide to stay closer to home.</p>

[coolweather]

<p>Menlo Park HS acceptance rate indicates that academic superstars are not Ivy caliber.
Among the highschools in the Bay Area, Menlo Park probably had the high acceptance rate to CHMPSY in 2009 but none of the acceptees were academic olympian. Many other students in other HS in the Bay Area were academic olympians.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.unl.edu/amc/e-exams/e8-usamo/e8-1-usamoarchive/2009-ua/09-Qual_list.pdf[/url]”>http://www.unl.edu/amc/e-exams/e8-usamo/e8-1-usamoarchive/2009-ua/09-Qual_list.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.aapt.org/olympiad2008/team.cfm[/url]”>http://www.aapt.org/olympiad2008/team.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://aapt-physicsteam.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html[/url]”>http://aapt-physicsteam.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“American Chemical Society”>American Chemical Society;

<p>Probably wealth, tutoring, counseling, essay writing,… are big factors.</p>

[marite]

<p>menloparkmom and coolweather:</p>

<p>a student who was accepted at two Ivies (aka overlap or double counting) but chooses not to attend either is reason enough to use admission rather than matriculation when discussing “Ivy caliber” (I still hate this label!).</p>

<p>The number of students admitted to CHMPSY also shows that one need not be an academic olympian to qualify as “Ivy caliber.” Which does not mean that the admitted students are not excellent, just that the threshold for qualifying need not be as sky high as POIH stated in an earlier post.</p>

<p>Pizzagirl: I agree with you totally. The big flagship in the Midwest are extremely attractive. I met the father of an academic superstar who was hesitating between Honors at Michigan with full ride and MIT. I think that MIT won out, but it would not have surprised me if the decision had gone the other way. The Midwest LACs are also extremely attractive to those who want to stay closer to home.</p>

[PaperChaserPop]

<p>

72%[ 72/100] of Menlo students accepted at HYPSM ,matriculated at those colleges.

</p>

<p>This is about five to ten percent higher than HYPSM’s average yield. This shows the number of students with multiple HYPSM acceptances is at or below 28. Even without knowing Menlo is a private school, the low yield on Cal and UCLA signals a very strong and wealthy student body.</p>

[anothercrazymom]

<p>My son’s prep school has an excellent college admissions office, they don’t limit the number of applications to college. They try to guide the kids to appropriate schools, but they understand the concept of what I call the “Hail Mary Pass”. There are special circumstances and quirks that make a candidate interesting. My son’s SAT, SAT II and AP scores are amazing. His GPA is nothing special, he is an athlete in a sport without alot of recruiting spots or even in all that many schools. He applied to 2 Ivies because he has a chance however slim of getting in versus not applying at all. Could he do the work? Absolutely, will he get the chance? Probably not. Ivy Caliber? Silly phrase.</p>

[2boysima]

<p>Post #223: " Menlo Park HS acceptance rate indicates that academic superstars are not Ivy caliber." “Menlo Park probably had the high acceptance rate to CHMPSY in 2009 but none of the acceptees were academic olympian.”</p>

<p>Not sure about the reasoning with these statements…even with the lists included. Believe it or not…not all academic superstars enter those science competitions!. </p>

<p>It was already noted that a number of the Menlo Park students are athletic recruits. (Yes…even the Ivy’s allow a “tip” for superstar athletes who are not “academic olympians” – and certainly Stanford does.) </p>

<p>Menlo Park HS is an academically demanding high school. It is in an upper middleclass to wealthy community (not saying 100% of the students fit into that category…but it’s the overall economic description of the community.) Universities aren’t going to fill their classes with rich suburban kids…but…the universities know that most of the top 10-20% of the kids in these high schools will do OK academically in the most demanding environments.</p>

[marite]

<p>I think the correct phrasing should have been “not all Ivy caliber students are academic superstars” rather than the reverse as posted.
Academic superstars would be those who are identified as such, usually through competitions and major awards. That does not mean that students who do not enter these competitions are not terrific (speaking as the parent of a student who never cared for competitions).</p>

[bovertine]

<p>I was very intrigued by that Menlo High School profile. Particularly interesting was that table that showed GPA and SAT Reasoning Test by quintile.</p>

<p>What I didn’t understand was if that table meant to join the GPA quintiles and SAT quintiles, or if they were separate. In other words, when it shows the top quintile by GPA, are those the same students that are repesented in the top quintile of SATI? In other words, they figure out the top quintile by GPA, then calculate the average SAT for those students. In that case, I think this would be a valuable table for correlating GPA and SAT scores. </p>

<p>Or are we supposed to assume that they show the top quintile GPA and top quintile SAT and they are not necessarily the same students? In other words, that they separately calculate the quintile ranges and just put it all in one table. Does anybody understand what I’m saying here?</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>

"I’ve results from all school and would like to know which school in the vicinity of menlo park send 25% of senior class to HMSPY. "</p>

<p>. <a href=“http://www.menloschool.org/data/file...ge_Profile.pdf[/url]”>http://www.menloschool.org/data/file...ge_Profile.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
see for yourself…</p>

<p>and, oh by the way, the senior class size has varied between 130-135 over the past 4 years.</p>

<p>Where’s the proof for your numbers?

</p>

<p>Sorry for missing the action as had some prior engagement for yesterday evening.
I know the menlo school quite well and know the numbers well. Here is the analysis for the school.

1. The provided profile list acceptances, so max of HMSPY is 52 take a shot and add 10% of it to itself which will give you a total of 57 unique acceptances over 3 years.
2. Total students over 3 years 134 * 3 = 402
3. 57/402 ~ 14%
   This on itself is not 25%, but there is more to this number.</p>

<p>Now the real picture, the max acceptance to Stanford are developmental admit for this school. A sport power house and full of Stanford legacy. So if you take those developmental admits out the acceptance rate from this school goes down to some where between 7% to 8 %.</p>

<p>That is what I was trying to explain.</p>

[Pea]

<p>

Re-iterating once again with a quantified measurement of a strong applicant to HMSPY.

1. A strong GPA in a tough curriculum in the context of the high school.
   It can mean nothing less than a Valedictorian at an average high school to up to 30% at private prep high school.

</p>

<p>I can’t speak to the 30% from private prep schools, it sounds high to me but I don’t really know. I can tell you that you absolutely do not have to be the valedictorian from a public school to be admitted to the Ivys. It simply isn’t true. Two people from my daughter’s high school last year went to the Ivys, neither was the valedictorian, both had very interesting backgrounds. The valedictorian did not go to the Ivys.</p>

<p>

As it is of no use considering schools that send 1 or 2 students once in a while.

</p>

<p>Why would you say something like that?</p>

<p>

During the Harvard visit, the admissions officer told us about a multi-year study they did about the applicant pool. They determined that 60% of applicants would be successful at Harvard. Then she said, “So what does it mean if we do not admit you to Harvard? It means we have 1,600 beds. That’s it.”

</p>

<p>Yes, pugmadkate. We heard that over and over again.</p>

<p>

Most people truly have no idea how few students are admitted these days. A mentor of my son encouraged him to skip applying to Brown and instead go for Harvard as he was absolutely sure my son would get in. I try to explain to people that the Ivy no longer admits 25% of applicants or even 15% but people think they are being helpful.

</p>

<p>Yes, it’s shocking to realize that getting into these schools is so much harder than it was 30 years ago. I think a person doesn’t appreciate that until their son or daughter goes through the process.</p>

<p>

Why does Harvard (and every other college, to be sure) do dog-and-pony shows across the nation? Because they want to reach BEYOND the usual suspect high schools. Because they don’t want all their private school kids to be Harvard-Westlake, Harkness, Latin School of Chicago, etc. and they don’t want all their public school kids to be New Trier, Scarsdale, New Canaan, etc.

</p>

<p>I certainly agree with that and good for them. They want a diverse class.</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>

I can’t speak to the 30% from private prep schools, it sounds high to me but I don’t really know. I can tell you that you absolutely do not have to be the valedictorian from a public school to be admitted to the Ivys. It simply isn’t true. Two people from my daughter’s high school last year went to the Ivys, neither was the valedictorian, both had very interesting backgrounds. The valedictorian did not go to the Ivys.

</p>

<p>Pea: What I listed was that you need to be somewhere between a Valedictorian to up to 30% depending upon the school. There are many public high school where even an applicant in top 10% has an equal chance because of the high standards of the school. But for most public school a non Valedictorian might not have a shot at all at HMSPY.</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>

MOST of the students who applied to Stanford applied SCEA, and matriculated there. I believe the last figures I saw were 19 accepted, 17 matriculated. MOST of the students who applied at Princeton applied ED and matriculated there.
The college counselors at Menlo discourage top students, many who are recruited athletes, from applying to multiple IVY"s," just to see where they can get in". Their advice is listened to carefully by both students and parents. Students who are accepted at colleges like HYPSM end up matriculating there, with few exceptions. The college admissions officers at HYPSM know that offering an acceptance to a Menlo student is not a waste of time.

</p>

<p>I’ll second that max number of 52 acceptances are SCEA where the preference is always given to sports and legacy admits.
But still the cross application between the HMSPY is almost 100% from Menlo Park even if Stanford acceptances are SCEA.</p>

[PaperChaserPop]

<p>bovertine, I believe they are independent. Menloparkmom, can you confirm?</p>

[PaperChaserPop]

<p>POIH, see posts #222 & #225. Menloparkmom confirmed 72% matriculation at HYPSM, so the HYPSM cross admit number is much lower than what you suspected, and that the number of students admitted to HYPSM is lower than the 25% she claimed earlier.</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>

POIH, see posts #222 & #225. Menloparkmom confirmed 72% matriculation at HYPSM, so the HYPSM cross admit number is much lower than what you suspected.

</p>

<p>I know the school very well even if my DD was not from that school. Look at the abnormality of Stanford number wrt to the second Princeton.
MPM is correct that there is less overlap between Stanford and rest of the admission because the 50% of Stanford acceptance is developmental admit and won’t get into HMPY anyway and that is why those 50% don’t apply.</p>

<p>Which leave 26 Students over the 3 years that apply to multiple HMSPY and get multiple offers.</p>

<p>MPM forgot to mention another all girls prep school in the same vicinity that used to send 20% of class to Stanford but again most of those were developmental admit.</p>

<p>** Developmental include sports, legacy **</p>

[EricLG]

<p>Lacking rich data on HYPS, I collated data from this thread:</p>

<p>69.8839% of posts are people reporting personal bias as fact;
17.2833% of posts are anecdotes;
while the remainder of posts are ill-conceived generalizations of partial data sets.</p>

[bovertine]

<p>

69.8839% of posts are people reporting personal bias as fact;
17.2833% of posts are anecdotes;
while the remainder of posts are ill-conceived generalizations of partial data sets.

</p>

<p>Which category does your post fit into?</p>

[bovertine]

<p>

bovertine, I believe they are independent. Menloparkmom, can you confirm?

You deserve an award for understanding my question. :)</p>

[Gourmetmom]

<p>

It seems though he donated seven figures to the University, his daughter, who had stats in the upper 50% of admitted students, was wait-listed.

</p>

<p>If she was wait listed, rather than deferred, I’m assuming that she didn’t apply EA/ED. Is this correct? Typically, these types of admits are always EA/ED, so I wonder if she was strung out because she didn’t apply early.</p>