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

[Naturally]

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^I think you posted on the wrong thread.

</p>

<p>Oops! You’re right. And it’s too late to edit my first post . . . Ah well.</p>

[PaperChaserPop]

<p>

We each have a limited window on admissions patterns. However, I have learned a great deal about the overall patterns from CC in the past few years–and I think that if we combined our (possibly limited and possibly prejudiced) views, a picture might emerge that is at least moderately realistic.

</p>

<p>Let’s roll up our sleeves and have some fun! </p>

<p>Let’s first lay down the “overlap” or the common denominator of elite schools, and then we can move on to the college specifics. Let’s also assume we are building profiles of unhooked – in the traditional sense which excludes recruited athletes, URM’s, DA’s & legacies – applicants. </p>

<p>Some ground rules, we are trying for the minimum “passing marks”, so no “cancer-curing” please. By “passing marks” I mean credentials that most people who are familiar with elite college admissions would be surprised if a candidate possessing them gets rejected, because the candidate should “pass”. I understand in the end there is still no guarantee, but like QM said, we may build a model that is moderately realistic. I also excluded desirable attributes that are hard to demonstrate or quantify through apps or interviews, e.g., integrity. Please feel free to challenge and disagree. </p>

<p>Overlap:</p>

<ol>
<li>Most rigorous curriculum</li>
<li>Top 2% class rank</li>
<li>2300+ SAT I or equivalent ACT (it’s high because I’m covering only the overlap now)</li>
<li>760+ on SAT II’s if required</li>
<li>2+ state or 1+ national level award/recognition, excluding NMF’s & AP Scholars.</li>
<li>1+ academic area beyond high school AP curriculum</li>
<li>Excellent writer and communicator</li>
<li>Community involvement with demonstrated initiatives</li>
<li>Excellent recommendations</li>
<li>Demonstrated value-add leadership (what is being led is made better)</li>
<li>Demonstrated creativity</li>
<li>1+ EC’s(or job) with sustained commitment and proven accomplishment</li>
</ol>

<p>I agree with CD on the low number of cross admits among HYPS. I’m going to take a guess and say less than 500 candidates per year satisfy the above overlap criteria.</p>

<p>Specifics (from TheGFG, #83): feel free to add more elite schools to this list.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Harvard requires a strong demonstration of initiative and stop-at-nothing ambition.</p></li>
<li><p>Yale seems to insist on strength of character and high level community service more than its peers.</p></li>
<li><p>Princeton loves quantified academic brilliance and high stats more than the others. </p></li>
<li><p>Penn likes leadership, and and really loves URM’s with leadership.</p></li>
<li><p>Dartmouth likes the well-rounded-good-at-many-things-but-not-necessarily-brilliant-at-anything type of students more than the other Ivies do. </p></li>
<li><p>Cornell likes the well-rounded-good-at-many-things-but-not-necessarily-brilliant-at-anything type of students more than the other Ivies do</p></li>
</ol>

[twinmom]

<p>“This certainly doesn’t bode well for smart, well-rounded, albeit accomplished, middle class kids.”</p>

<p>^ Not necessarily so. That’s a perfect definition of my kid. I will add two more adjectives: passionate and driven.</p>

<ol>
<li>Most rigorous curriculum<br></li>
<li>Top 2% class rank<br></li>
<li>2300+ SAT I or equivalent ACT </li>
<li>760+ on SAT II’s if required </li>
<li>2+ state or 1+ national level award/recognition, excluding NMF’s & AP Scholars. </li>
<li>1+ academic area beyond high school AP curriculum </li>
<li>Excellent writer and communicator<br></li>
<li>Community involvement with demonstrated initiatives<br></li>
<li>Excellent recommendations </li>
<li>Demonstrated value-add leadership (what is being led is made better)<br></li>
<li>Demonstrated creativity<br></li>
<li>1+ EC’s(or job) with sustained commitment and proven accomplishment<br></li>
</ol>

<p>10/12 of the above </p>

<p>Accepted: Harvard, Columbia
Denied: Yale, Penn</p>

[Hunt]

<p>

The average yield of these 5 schools is around 70%. This is mathematically impossible if every applicant to these schools is also admitted to another one in the same group.

Well, we don’t know how many students apply to multiple HYPSM schools. There may be quite a few who only apply to only one of these.</p>

<p>As a Yale alum myself, I hesitate to compare the Yale “type” to the Harvard “type.” I may have too much bias. I might characterize it the following way, though: when a Yale type is admitted to Yale, he is delighted; when a Harvard type is admitted to Harvard, he believes that justice has been done.</p>

[twinmom]

<p>^ My kid would have been delighted to have been admitted to Yale. No way she thought justice was done when she was admitted to Harvard. Not for a second did she think that.</p>

[PaperChaserPop]

<p>^twinmom, do you mind telling us which 2 out 12 did your kid miss? We may be able to build up something based on all the input and form conjectures on the college specifics.</p>

[Gourmetmom]

<p>PCP -</p>

<p>What about Brown?</p>

<p>Top 2% only applies to public schools. Rigorous private preps are easily top 10% and the elite boarding schools are probably top 20%</p>

[twinmom]

<p>Definitely #6 Never took a course beyond APs but took many (10ish) and scored extremely well</p>

<p>I am not comfortable speaking about her scores/grades on this board so I can’t elaborate beyond that. However, she was not Val or Sal.</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>

ParentofIvyHope- I disagree with almost everything you wrote. Yes, the student you describe is an Ivy candidate, but it is NOT necessary to meet those criteria to have a shot at a highly selective school. There are plenty of kids at these schools who didn’t get anywhere near 750 on the writing portion of SAT and who were never AP Scholars. Many private schools don’t encourage or even allow that many APs.

</p>

<p>Let us put just in simple words that OP asked what an “Ivy-Calibre” applicant is?
The answer to this question only qualifies applicants where the success rate of matriculating to an “Ivy-Calibre” school is very high.
That is what I described. Now to put in numbers.

1. 16000 NMSF
2. 15000 NMF
3. 4000 Presidential Scholar Candidates
4. 800 AP National Scholar after Junior Year
5. 300 Intel Semi-finalists</p>

<p>It is pure a question of probability. I just depicted that if an applicant have these achievements then yes the applicant is top schools calibre and will matriculate to one.</p>

<p>And I never said these are the only characteristics of an “Ivy-Calibre” students.</p>

<p>But I do maintain that if you know what to do and can achieve that then even Harvard is a guaranteed admission. So just being an Ivy-Caliber applicant is much easier.</p>

[Kei-o-lei]

<p>OP said: “Kei, the number of students in high scoring bands as reported by the schools should be even higher than the college board number because of superscoring reporting practice.”</p>

<p>The numbers I provided were not superscored . . . </p>

<p>Kei</p>

[Kei-o-lei]

<p>OP said:
3. 2300+ SAT I or equivalent ACT (it’s high because I’m covering only the overlap now)</p>

<p>hahahaha</p>

<p>In 2008 that was only 5684 students</p>

<p>Ivies have ~14,000 frosh slots</p>

<p>Get real, folks. This CC outlook decsribing what’s a quality SAT is disconneced from reality.</p>

<p>My point is that the are many fewer students who have those kinds of SAT scores than you would think . . . because all of them and their parents post here!!!</p>

<p>Kei</p>

[bovertine]

<p>

Well, we don’t know how many students apply to multiple HYPSM schools. There may be quite a few who only apply to only one of these.

</p>

<p>Good point, and once again something I didn’t think of. I just had a birthday yesterday, but I didn’t know I was slipping this much. :(</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>Pizzagirl:

And yet … POIH … the kids I know who are going to Ivies and similar caliber schools don’t have that profile when it comes to extracurriculars. Their extracurriculars are more “simple” things like - was in band, chorus, school plays, math club, French club, etc. Not Siemens / Intel national award levels. I’m talking about unhooked kids. They are simply BRWK who on paper, frankly, look far less impressive than the kids you see on CC who get rejected. Which is why I think there is that element of randomness and who-strikes-me-as-interesting-today.

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<p>The question was not who is at an “Ivy-Caliber” school but who can be tagged as “Ivy-Caliber” applicant. If you don’t know why the student in my grade got into Harvard then you can not tagged that applicant as “Ivy-Caliber”.</p>

<p>The OP asks what are the quantify measurement for an “Ivy-Caliber” applicant and that is what I posted.</p>

<p>There are many applicant who get into Harvard on subjective reasoning and no one is able to make out why and everyone start making the admissions at HMSPY is crap shot. But the admission is not a crap shot but has a well defined objective route too.</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>

POIH said: “1. Smart : No matter what anyone else says the standardized tests does indicate level of smartness as required by the top institutes including Ivies. To Quantify: Above 2250 on SAT1 . . .”</p>

<p>CC folks tend to have an inflated idea of what “good” SAT scores are.</p>

<p>In 2008 there were 11972 kids with SATs of 2250 or better.</p>

<p>The 8 Ivies admit just under 14000 kids.</p>

<p>Add in Stanford, U Chicago, Cal Tech, MIT, Williams, Amherst and you’re up to just over 19,000 frosh.</p>

<p>That’s an SAT of 2210 and above.</p>

<p>It goes on . . . add in Wellesley, Harvey Mudd, Duke, Swarthmore and so on, and by the time you get to top 30 schools or so, you’re up to ~50,000 students.</p>

<p>That’s 2110 and above.</p>

<p>Kei

</p>

<p>The probability goes down with the lower SAT1/SATII score with SAT1 score having a higher precedence over SATII</p>

<p>What I was listing as the most highly probable candidates for a top school which is HMSPY for me but applicable to anyother top school including all Ivies.</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>GFG:

I can’t prove it, of course, but I do think that the admit lists of the Ivies will differ from each other as far as certain intangible qualities prevalent among their students. Each school has a personality to it which is affected by the biases of the admissions staff and by self-selection by applicants. The D of a friend of ours was helped by a college counseling service, which provided her with a list of what each of the elite schools really wanted to see in an applicant beyond the obvious stats. We might agree that these must be gross generalizations. No doubt they are, yet in their professional experience this organization distilled a list of characteristics which they had noticed were of greater importance to each school than other traits.</p>

<p>We might have fun by making up our own version of this. Here’s mine:</p>

<p>Dartmouth and Cornell like the well-rounded-good-at-many-things-but-not-necessarily-brilliant-at-anything type of students more than the other Ivies do. </p>

<p>Yale seems to insist on strength of character and high level community service more than its peers.</p>

<p>Princeton loves quantified academic brilliance and high stats more than the others. </p>

<p>Harvard requires a strong demonstration of initiative and stop-at-nothing ambition.</p>

<p>Penn likes leadership, and and really loves URM’s with leadership.

</p>

<p>Your take on different colleges seem quite right. I’ll add some more to it.</p>

<p>Harvard has two distinctive lines of admission and that is why sometime it feels like a crap shot.

1. For super academic star: In order to qualify for this line you not only need to have what I describe but beyond. That is why they have the most Presidential Scholars from HMSPY.
2. Performing Arts/Theater/Sports super stars: It is also very difficult to qualify but if you have performed at Carnegie Hall, then you are in type.
   And students who balance them between the two lines and hence some time kids with SAT1 2000 get in while 2400 don’t because 2000 had strong performing arts.</p>

[PaperChaserPop]

<p>

Get real, folks. This CC outlook decsribing what’s a quality SAT is disconneced from reality.

</p>

<p>Of course my numbers could be wrong, but Kei, I think you missed the point. I set a high mark on SAT for the “overlap” Ivy-caliber applicants - students that should be accepted to all Ivies, not just any Ivy admit. May be I wasn’t clear in my earlier post. Each college may trade one or more of the 12 criteria or lower the bar on them for other desirable attributes that are specific to the college. Also, your number does not account for superscores, which could easily double the number of applicants with high scores.</p>

<p>bovertine, belated happy birthday!</p>

[Pea]

<p>ParentOfIvyHope –</p>

<p>

It is pure a question of probability. I just depicted that if an applicant have these achievements then yes the applicant is top schools calibre and will matriculate to one.

</p>

<p>Our kids are not statistics, they are kids. They take tests and don’t do well, they try extra-curriculars and don’t like them. They need down time, they need time with their friends. If getting into Harvard means never being human then maybe the quest isn’t worth it.</p>

<p>And you know what? Harvard knows this. If every applicant to Harvard had the kind of stats that you described that would, in your words, guarantee them admission, they wouldn’t all get it. Harvard doesn’t want a class full of robotic over achievers, they want a well rounded class full of diversity.</p>

<p>That is why the admissions sometimes appears to be random.</p>

<p>

There is no magic and for the deserving candidates even Harvard is a guaranteed admission. At DD high school it has not happened since the school matriculated its first senior batch that Harvard had denied admission to its Valedictorian. So its a guaranteed admission.

</p>

<p>You are wrong. There is no such thing as guaranteed admission to Harvard.</p>

[PaperChaserPop]

<p>

If every applicant to Harvard had the kind of stats that you described that would, in your words, guarantee them admission, they wouldn’t all get it. Harvard doesn’t want a class full of robotic over achievers, they want a well rounded class full of diversity.

</p>

<p>I think you nested a “myth” in the above. High or perfect stats kids are not necessarily robotic overachievers. Some kids just operate on a different level in almost everything they do, including having fun!</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>Pea:

Our kids are not statistics, they are kids. They take tests and don’t do well, they try extra-curriculars and don’t like them. They need down time, they need time with their friends. If getting into Harvard means never being human then maybe the quest isn’t worth it.</p>

<p>And you know what? Harvard knows this. If every applicant to Harvard had the kind of stats that you described that would, in your words, guarantee them admission, they wouldn’t all get it. Harvard doesn’t want a class full of robotic over achievers, they want a well rounded class full of diversity.</p>

<p>That is why the admissions sometimes appears to be random.

</p>

<p>You are missing the point here. The admission to Harvard is pseudo random and not random.</p>

<p>That is why I listed the 2 different streams of admission and then it become grey in between where it is random.</p>

<p>But it is a guaranteed admission to stellar applicant in any one of the two streams.
And it is a proven concept.</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>

I think you nested a “myth” in the above. High or perfect stats kids are not necessarily robotic overachievers. Some kids just operate on a different level in almost everything they do, including having fun!

</p>

<p>Very true!.</p>