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

Parents Forum
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<p>Paperchaserpop: Another data point from you. Good suburban high school, but not Scarsdale or New Trier.</p>

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<li>Most rigorous curriculum–yes, tons of APs but no classes outside of high school offerings. Was eligible under high school umbrella to take class at local college since was advanced in one area, but that would have required his own car which he didn’t have. This fact wouldn’t necessarily have been clear from transcript, though. (I can take this word for word - he did have a post AP Calc class.)</li>
<li>Top 2% class rank–yes</li>
<li>2300+ SAT I or equivalent ACT (it’s high because I’m covering only the overlap now)-- 800 CR twice, 760/770 math, 690 W (in a year where it still didn’t count)</li>
<li>760+ on SAT II’s if required–three 800s</li>
<li>2+ state or 1+ national level award/recognition, excluding NMF’s & AP Scholars.–he won Physics and something else at State Science Olympiad, Academic team went to nationals, took AIME though scores weren’t overwhelming</li>
<li>1+ academic area beyond high school AP curriculum–yes</li>
<li>Excellent writer and communicator-- no, but did have 5 on AP US history, adequate somewhat humerous essay.</li>
<li>Community involvement with demonstrated initiatives–he just had summer at Senior Center helping out in computer center</li>
<li>Excellent recommendations–we assume so</li>
<li>Demonstrated value-add leadership (what is being led is made better)–I think he had very positive recommendations from his programming job, and know he had a fantastic one about a project he did for a professor</li>
<li>Demonstrated creativity–his essay showed some creativity, but except in programming it’s not his strong suit.</li>
<li>1+ EC’s(or job) with sustained commitment and proven accomplishment–yes - he was paid like any other computer programming independent contractor because he was doing work that was at same level as college grads.</li>
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<p>Results: Stanford, MIT, Caltech rejected (Deferred into the regular round from EA for the latter two). Harvey Mudd waitlist. Harvard accepted. (Legacy surely helped here.) Carnegie Mellon, School of Computer Science accepted.</p>

<p>Looking at our school’s Naviance data, I’m pretty sure he’d have gotten into Cornell, but think any of the other Ivy’s could have gone either way. </p>

<p>His weakness were only two school based ECs, both academic in nature, no science research (due to bad experience with teacher freshman year) and essay - which was solid and funny, but ultimately not too personal. Plusses, excellent computer experience and outside recommendations, proved that he was a self-starter willing to teach himself what school didn’t offer. I think he was “Ivy caliber” just not “Ivy shoe-in”.</p>

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<p>^That is what I meant! (the above two posts)</p>

<p>We are not here to debate the merit of “Ivy caliber” students going to less prestigious or lower ranked schools, and we are not here to debate whether these students are better off going to non-Ivy schools. We are trying to build profiles of “Ivy caliber” students. Through the course of this discussion this thread has morphed into building the profiles of “Ivy caliber” students who should be successful at admissions to the tippy-tops. Successful admissions in at least one of these schools became a criterion. At the same time, I’m still interested in triangulating the profiles of super applicants, unhooked students in the “overlap” and are accepted to multiple tippy-tops without any rejection.</p>

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<p>Did Parent of Ivy Hopeful ever post her child’s stats? I think it was to MIT</p>

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<p>The problem is that college admissions is not based on an absolute sum but on a comparative one. As everyone knows, not too long ago, there was a thing called “qualification” for an Ivy, and it was pretty simple. That was before generous financial aid policies, before geographical expansion of the pool, before the expansion of sports programs on & off campus, before the echo boom, and before the immigration numbers of the last 20 years. Now it is all comparative. </p>

<p>What we don’t have here (for example) are the comparatives for GFG’s son, in his region, his locality. We can’t compare the ‘communication on his application’ (referenced twice by his mother :slight_smile: ) against students with similar backgrounds & accomplishments; can’t compare his unknown on-campus e.c.'s with level of e.c.'s possibly off-campus of local competitors applying to Princeton et al. (his reach list). Etc.</p>

<p>Nothing is decided in a vacuum. Given his location and essentially middle-class background, his ‘advantage’ as a URM may have been less a factor in his case than URM’s from other locations with less in-home advantages, worse schools, etc., even when they (probaby) accomplished less than he did. The point is that it is all about combinations. So if the U found a URM who was almost as academically accomplished as GFG’s son, but from a less Ivy-saturated locality than NJ (under-represented geography), and with more impressive off-campus e.c.'s, with greater economic hurdles, and who had clearly outdone all of his or her local peers in h.s. with an identical background, that URM might have been seen comparatively as ‘more desirable’ in terms of offering opportunity. Not saying it’s fair, etc., just noting that single factors are not the determinants, alone or in combination with regard to an individual student. One is always being compared with the local & broader pool, on a variety of combined factors.</p>

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<p>Kelowna – I’ll PM ya. NO guarantees, even for USAXXO folks. No sour grapes here – S applied to five T-15s, was accepted at two EA, deferred/waitlisted at one, rejected at two (both Ivy). He got into exactly the schools he wanted, and his essays probably made it abundantly clear where he’d fit. Considering the crapshoot nature of admissions, we were all pretty happy with his results.</p>

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<p>Epiphany- PCP doesn’t want to hear you. He is looking for the algorithm and I hope once his son decides where he’s going next year the search for the magic formula will end once and for all.</p>

<p>You said what I tried to but much more eloquently and succinctly. No kid or parent can see the rest of the applicant pool. No kid or parent can predict which adcom at a particular school will read which application. Your kid could be the 12th “tennis playing/homeless shelter volunteer/cello wiz” of the week for a particular person at a particular college, so your kids essay on playing cello at a homeless shelter may only get a passing glance unless there is something else beyond compelling in the application. And that’s where all the things you can’t control- your zip code, your HS’s reputation for grade inflation, your ethnicity, your socio-economic status as communicated by whatever the adcom’s think about your town, etc. comes into play.</p>

<p>Two kids with identical stats and similar EC’s. One is from Greenwich CT and the other is from Bridgeport CT, both from public HS’s. Both could be racial minorities but Greenwich kid’s father runs a hedge fund and Bridgeport kids father drives a bus. You are the kid in Greenwich- there’s just no way you can move the needle or predict where you’re getting in and where you aren’t. Just do your best and find a school that would love to have you.</p>

<p>PCP- you are wasting your time IMHO.</p>

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<p>PaperChaserPop: I gave you way back in #73 what you were looking for:

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<p>Look at #73, add to that a high school like DD’s HS and become a valedictorian.
Even Harvard will be a guaranteed in.
But even if you won’t be a valedictorian you still will have multiple acceptances at HMSPY + C…</p>

<p>Private High Schools like Philips Exter, Andover, Winsor on the east coast or Harvard-westlake, Menlo, Harker, Stevenson, U. Prep of SF etc on the west coast.
Public High schools like TJHS, Steyvasant NY etc.</p>

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<p>Let me just say (apropos of nothing really) that I sympathize with the poor kids and parents who are waiting for April. It must be really stressful.</p>

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<p>I know! That is what I indicated in my post . And I think it is unfair - because if you have an acomplishment like this ALONG with high stats and EC’s and everything that will make you an “ivy caliber” - top schools should be fighting to have you attend!</p>

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<p>epiphany, yes! blossom, yes, yes! </p>

<p>Adding to your excellent lists of other influencers that come into play…:</p>

<p>Does the kid’s file read as “authentic?” Does what the GC wrote, what the kid wrote, the ECs and summer activities all tell the same story? Adcoms are wary of manufactured kids (or at least apps) and over-assistance from pros.</p>

<p>Has the applicant shot their “tip” or “hook” in the foot, inadvertently? Has an athlete missed a season w/o explanation? Does the legacy family stay active and contribute to alma mater? Does a girl who has a play produced off-Broadway have a father who is a big Producer? Will a celeb’s kid make it past a savvy adcom with just a great last name, a suspiciously polished generic essay, and no demonstrated interest in that U?</p>

<p>Is essay very persuasive (self-revealing, honest, original or unique)? A great essay is not just a tale of an admired family member, travel epiphany, or sports comeback, plus good grammar and heartwarming lesson learned. It is hard for those outside the process to know the context (those other 20,000 often heavily advised/edited essays) among which one’s own essay may or may not stand out. Add to that the dismaying reality that an essay that rings the bell at one school may tick off another.</p>

<p>Do the adcoms detect a (real or imagined) preference to attend Princeton (say) and pass over a wonderfully qualified candidate telling themselves–well, he’ll get into Princeton, anyway, so no harm in passing. Tell this to the family that faces thin envelopes in April.</p>

<p>Does the kid fall into a favored (or disfavored) type? Just about every admissions rep has a favorite type–which is how a quirky girl who writes poetry while watching the Northern Lights from her igloo window (just like the Alaska-born admissions rep who identifies with her struggle) gets a yes, while a terribly bright and sporty girl from Miami does not.</p>

<p>Finally, Finally–we are sharing anecdotal evidence which is interesting, but drives many here crazy. Even looking at Naviance figures cannot tell which admit is hooked and/or which had a disciplinary record disclosed to adcoms. cc is filled with many anonymous posters who tell the scrupulous truth, but without knowing the level of reality or self-delusion a given poster may live in, how can we hope to judge every self-reported “great essays, best LORs, most rigorous, 4.0 UW”? In fact, since many highly selective Us recompute the GPA to their own formulas, it’s nearly impossible to accurately report GPA (it’s a changing number), let alone the stats of friends and/or rivals.</p>

<p>There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your…“ivy caliber” admissions fantasies.</p>

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<p>There is definitely a formula for getting into Ivy league schools. I read alot on the admission process (because I couldn’t afford a private counselor) and from everything I read the whole line about passion is very correct. Looking through the profiles of the students who were accepted, you see that the two things that stood out the most about the accepted students were either: a) they did something OUTSIDE of their high school and b)they wrote about one of their ECs.</p>

<p>I emphasize the first part because adcoms seem to really value when kids make the most of the opportunities available to them, but especially value kids that make opportunities for themselves. In my case (and that is the only one I can really speak of with actual knowledge) I am 100% sure that I was accepted because I was the only kid in my entire high school who participated in science fair competitions, I did so by teaching myself everything, working to pay for the materials, and registering myself in the competitions. And although I had only moderate success at science fair, I would wager that adcoms considered that experience to be on par with much more prestigious accomplishments in science competitions.</p>

<p>I knew that was something that made me unique so I built my entire application around it and focused one of my essays on the science competitions. And well it worked out fine for me.</p>

<p>I did so because Michelle Hernadez in her book suggested that the above model should be followed, so obviously–to a certain extent–Ivies ARE looking for something.</p>

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<p>Yep. He’s right on the money. This is particularly true for the cross-admits.</p>

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<p>I wonder if doing something outside the high school is a way to control for the fact that some private schools require club and sports involvement of all their students and build that achievement into the school day. It would also reduce somewhat the impact of passionless EC involvement and resume building just to get into college. Going outside and beyond high school to learn and accomplish would distinguish the kid with passion, initiative, or out-of-the-box thinking, as well as someone who has already managed to succeed in the “real world”.</p>

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<p>That’s probably why WE the outsiders see so much randomness of top school admissions.</p>

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<p>Does a college wonder what such a student can do for them, will she/he become rich and famous (however defined) or just another Jane/Joe?</p>

<p>As parents, perhaps all that we can do is to help our kids be the unique individual that they are, which requires hard work from day 1 or day -280. As long as they have their best grades and test scores, and enjoy their ECs, whatever the best colleges they make into is fine. Besides, there are many schools that are better than some of the Ivies (if you check their rankings).</p>

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<p>Please, not the “Ivies” again. Can we talk instead about top schools, whether or not they belong in the Ivy League?
I’m not sure that there is a formula for getting into top schools as Dbate suggests. There may be one for getting into some of the top schools, but not necessarily all of them. For example, the quirky essay would work well at Chicago, but perhaps not carry as much weight at another school as opposed to some other component.
I would venture, however, that “doing something outside school” is not necessarily a way for controlling for the private vs. public. “Passion” may be a substitute for self-motivation, initiative, imagination and “stick-to-it-ness,” all traits that colleges value.

As Dbate experience shows, it does not need to result in national or international awards. But just from this brief passage, I can agree that Yale was absolutely right in admitting him.
And that goes back to my argument (repeated by other posters) that we do not know everything about individual applicants. I would surmise that many other applicants had similar GPAs and board scores as Dbate; but they did not put together an application that showed the same initiative, motivation, etc… as Dbate.</p>

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<p>They are highly valued elsewhere, too. You can tell who has more than others among your co-workers, in graduate schools or medical schools, or everywhere you look.</p>

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<p>Indeed. No disagreement from me.
My main point is that such traits need not be exhibited by sky high achievements such as Olympiad medals, but through local science fairs as in the case of Dbate.
If Dbate were to list his GPA, score boards and awards, he might not stand out from the huge pool of “Ivy caliber” applicants. It was the way his whole package came together–probably via teachers’ recs and his own application-- that made his passion visible, and him such a desirable applicant. It probably did not hurt, either, that Yale has been trying to beef up its science program to match its excellence in the humanities and social sciences.</p>

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<p>marite:

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<p>Dbate left a subtle detail from his posting that (s)he applied to Yale as an URM from Texas.</p>

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<p>POIH:</p>

<p>I know URMs who did not get into top schools–one from my S’s own school, which would have given him a double hook. My S said he was extremely bright. He did get into another top school. The GFG’s student, totally stellar, URM, did not get into some of the top schools to which he applied. One can make far too much of “hooks” and not enough of the elements that are not immediately apparent to outsiders.</p>

<p>I’ll use another example from a former CC poster. Long-time CC posters may remember this young man.The student was a white kid from the Midwest. No hook anywhere, but a passion for science since elementary school. He was fortunate to be mentored by a local scientist with a national reputation. But he did not win major awards, probably because he did not enter major competitions. He was rejected by Yale, with a letter that was insulting in its condescension (and written by a rep who was a recent graduate). He got into Duke and JHU, both of which have reputation in the field equal if not better than Yale’s and with major money. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, is now in grad school.
Ivy caliber? You bet, even if he did not get into Yale.</p>

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<p>Marite:</p>

<p>But once you have a hook which is as strong as URM or Legacy, you can’t compare stats with a general applicant. The one applicant from your S’s school and TheGFG’s son still got into schools where a similar stats general applicant might have been rejected.
Unless you know that is not the case you can’t cross apply stats with or without a hook.
I think the thread wants to know the characteristics that makes a general applicant to top schools stand out.</p>