<p>I have two kids attending an ivy and one attending another top non ivy. What each of these three had in common was a desire to learn…common sense when you are looking at what makes a kid “ivy caliber”. Well the difference might be in how they go about learning, and to what lenght a kid will go, to explore and develop this desire. All three of my kids earned two years of college before they even set foot on their campuses in the fall. They did not transfer these credits to their universites. They just enjoyed the process. Did they each have other things going for them…Yes. They were not intel winners or team sport athletes and they are not brilliant according to the standards set for brillance. They were hard working and very dilligent (considered a curse in academic admissions lol) but they were each very passionate about education and life in general. That is my two cents about what makes a kid “ivy caliber”. The grades, rigor of courses, ECs, and passion. If the passion to learn is not evident, then a student could have a 2400 SAT and a 4.0 but they are just like every other top level student.</p>
<p>My son is an athlete, Lightweight Rowing, very limited on the college varsity level. He had to try for some ivies to compete at the level he would like. He also applied to some great schools with club teams. Princeton’s recruiting package spelled out very clearly what the minimum academic requirements were to be considered: 2000 on the SAT, 32 on the ACT, 700 on 3 SAT II’s. Only then did they mention erg times. He didn’t apply there, too close to his Boarding School. All I know is for crew, that is what Princeton considered “Ivy Caliber”.</p>
<p>POIH’s model (#71/#457) is pretty good. As for ALL models, it is useful but inaccurate, and it never will. If you don’t believe me, just look at what the best models did on Wall Street and to us all. However, with 3 of the 4 attributes held constant, one can increase one’s chance of getting into Harvard drastically, e.g., 1100 SAT at 0 to 2400 SAT at 25%.</p>
<p>The reason why most of us don’t like the model might be because it doesn’t apply to our kids. We often think our kids are the best, and they are, to us.</p>
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I have a data point that blows that model out of the water right off the bat…</p>
<p>Is this just a thread about Harvard Princeton and Yale…there are other schools just as good in the ivy and non ivy caliber?</p>
<p>By the way…I am still laughing at Hunts remark on page one. I will certainly remember that one.</p>
<p>The reason we don’t like the model is because it doesn’t take into account there is a young kid on the receiving end. Extra-curriculars that will get you into the Ivys aren’t fun and games anymore, they are tough. Whether it is science fairs, the debate team, the Olympiads. Don’t get me wrong, I think these activities are fine if the motivation comes from the kid. Then they get something out of the process so if they don’t do well at one of them it isn’t that important. If they wanted to be there then they got something out of the struggle.</p>
<p>ParentOfIvyHope’s thinking turned out to be quite different when it was his own kid:</p>
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<p>When it was his own kid he didn’t push her onto some Ivy track, he followed her lead. He encouraged but didn’t lose sight that he was dealing with a real person.</p>
<p>The model that he has been presenting us with turns out to be something that he himself would never use.</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^</p>
<p>and because it’s NOT a model: it’s a list of attributes!!!</p>
<p>POIH said: “For most applicant to any school, you can analyze and find out why the applicant was selected to begin with. Whether it was a hook or the applicant is really “Ivy-Caliber”.”</p>
<p>Not true; best you can do is get a few anecdotes.</p>
<p>Example: if you looked at last year’s matriculation at my of child’s high school, you’d under-estimate the number of Ivy admits because you do nor know results of the admissions process . . .and you will never know what other 3, or 6 or 8 schools that these boys applied to and which were Ivies; you would over-estimate the number of unhooked Ivy admits because it’s impossible for you to know whether is was solely the criteria on your list of some other little hook that triggered the admit decisions. Example: was it the baseball or the SAT scores that got one kid into Dartmouth? Who knows???</p>
<p>So . . . declare victory: you have a list of academic attributes that will increase the chances of admissions at ANY college. But a “model” of who is regarded as an “Ivy-caliber” admit by the Ivies it ain’t. </p>
<p>Kei</p>
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<p>I never pushed the model out unless PCP asked for it. PCP wants to have the model and there is nothing wrong in having the information/knowledge. How you apply it to your children is up to you.</p>
<p>I rightfully believe that it is DD’s life from choosing a HS and APs to choosing MIT, her decision to join a sorority to her financial independent even though I’m footing the full fare.</p>
<p>The only thing I’ve done is to provide her with pros and cons of her decisions whenever it is possible without any inherent bias.</p>
<p>I note that the atmosphere here has become contentious. Putting my moderator hat on, I’ll remind everyone please to be aware that it is possible to disagree vigorously on the facts without disagreeing with personal comments directed to other participants. </p>
<p>[College</a> Confidential - FAQ: College Discussion - TOS & FAQ](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item]College”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item) </p>
<p>I don’t assume I’m enough of a mind-reader to be sure all the time what other participants’ motives are for posting here. </p>
<p>On my part as one reader among many here, I thank the OP for asking a focused question that has elicited a lot of interesting discussion with detailed examples. The question relates to terminology that has appeared in other threads opened by other participants, and it has been informative to look at the discussion here and think about what “Ivy caliber” might mean. </p>
<p>Good luck to all of you who have children applying this year or in future years to colleges inside or outside the Ivy League. Thanks to the parents whose children have all gone through this process for staying around to share information with the rest of us.</p>
<p>tokenadult, thanks for the reminder on online etiquette.</p>
<p>Back in action. POIH’s theory on valedictorians of top high schools intrigues me. If indeed, the number one ranked students from top ranked high schools such as always get admitted to all the top 10 schools they apply to, we may have something here.</p>
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<p>My interest is not in the top high schools themselves, but the perfect acceptance record of their valedictorians. This implies academic strength alone, when strong enough, can be enough of a lock on the admissions to elite colleges. I don’t have 20 years worth of record of any top high schools, but thinking about POIH’s post, I realized I’ve never seen valedictorians from Stuyvesant get turned down at Harvard, granted I didn’t check on the school every year and there is a chance that Stuy may not have a perfect record. (I don’t think Stuy does class rankings, but students and parents there know who has the highest average, and somehow elite colleges can figure this out too.) If they exist then these perfect acceptance records of valedictorians from selected high schools lend support to the existence of a lock in admissions. Aside from POIH’s D’s high school, does anyone have records that show whether the valedictorians from other schools, public or private, that have perfect acceptance record to top colleges for at least ten years or more?</p>
<p>Certainly, these valedictorians did not all have the same EC’s or awards or DA/legacy/URM status. I don’t think they were all athletes either. The only common attribute known to us is academic strength. By graduating first from their highly competitive high schools, their academic achievements are deemed high enough for what appeared to be assured acceptances.</p>
<p>The valedictorians from our high school (not competitive) nearly always get into to the “Ivy Caliber” schools, but they do far more than just get the top GPA. They are running clubs, doing sports, doing science research, winning medals etc. (Some or all of the above.) I know in my son’s class the val got into Yale (double legacy) and Harvard (not a legacy).</p>
<p>I’d expect Stuy vals to have more going for them than just the highest GPA.</p>
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<p>I seriously doubt that those are the standards for athletes. Granted Yale is not Princeton, but I have a suite mate who was a recruit (though for Hockey) who, if I am not mistaken, received a sub 2000 SAT score and did not even have to write essays to get into the university. And I hate to judge applicants–considering that I also was a hooked applicant and others could just as easily dismiss my qualifications on the basis of my hook—but from the athletes I have meet at Yale I would severely doubt that they had those qualifications.</p>
<p>Anothercrazymom in post # 462 gave us much needed stats. Thanks!
It is refreshing to see a post like that, with real numbers :)</p>
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<p>After thinking about this some more, I feel it is debatable whether we should exclude recruited athletes. While being a legacy, an URM or a DA has nothing to do with earned merit, being a recruited athlete, otoh, is an earned merit. It is an example of an endeavor that the student worked on and excelled in, similar to high level research or mastery of a musical instrument. As in the case of valedictorians from elite high schools getting in on incredible academic performance alone, kids who are extremely dedicated and good in their sports become recruited athletes.</p>
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<p>Acceptances are rarely “assured” for anyone unhooked, because the variables will be not only non-academic aspects, but the application effort itself, including the essay(s). This is true for reach publics, as well as Ivies.</p>
<p>The part that is true is that it tends to be easier for accomplished unhooked applicants from reputable privates/publics to be taken seriously, than for those from lesser known schools. Fair or not, it’s just the way it works. Overall, everything else being equal, the #3 student from a demanding h.s. can have an edge over the #1 from a mid-level school.</p>
<p>(That’s just one reason why absolute characteristics without a context do not work.)</p>
<p>Here is an excerpt of a post (#48) from vlezquez on the “Effect of HS’s academic reputation on college acceptance” thread.</p>
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<p>I counted 114 applicants and 27 acceptances. The interesting part is at the top. While I don’t know if the top student was the val that year, but that student plus the next four (again may not be the next four ranking wise because we have to allow the possibility that some students with higher average did not apply to Harvard that year) all got accepted. I believe this is the pattern at Stuy every year. Granted, we dont’ know what the top 5 accepted students had besides their grades.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/831610-effect-hss-academic-reputation-college-acceptance-4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/831610-effect-hss-academic-reputation-college-acceptance-4.html</a></p>
<p>Wow. Look at those SAT scores. Looks like if you get under 700 in math you may be a candidate for remedial studies at that high school.</p>
<p>I have not analyzed all of the Stuy data, but here is an interesting comparison of GPA and SAT scores:
Acccepted: 96.3/630/650/780.
Not accepted: 96.8/750/750/790.
I’ll let others try to explain why these two students had such different outcomes at Harvard.</p>
<p>Are the GPAs weighted?</p>