What percentage of seats do you think unhooked kids compete for at elite schools?

College Confidential Community
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Someone told me that once you take legacy, URM, athletes etc, you really have only 50% general, open category seats that unhooked kids are really competing for.

So if a school has 60%+ yield and has 1,600 slots, they probably will extend 1,300 offers for the 800 or so open unhooked slots out of a possible 35k+ unhooked applications which makes it very hard to get in. I’ve heard the odds may be worse actually. I feel that this may be accurate but am not sure

Is this correct or just idle speculation?

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This is a good question. Not college, but we discovered after the fact that in applying to an elite private kindergarten for one of our kids, they essentially had 4 slots out of 30 left after taking many legacy and a few URM candidates. (We weren’t particularly disappointed, and we’re glad in retrospect that our kid didn’t get in, but that is another story.).

I’d say you can count on the bottom
25% of the class being hooked somehow for sure. So the general idea is that if your stats are below the 25% mark and you are unhooked, your chances of getting in are slim indeed. And I think a percentage of the rest of the class is hooked, too, but it is harder to nail down the percentage. Maybe another 10-15%? So that gets to around 35-40%.

I don’t know that the actual odds matter a lot. Toss your best application into the ring, and make sure you have matches and safeties you like. Then go eat ice cream and wait.

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Among schools that field the usual set of sports teams, smaller schools will have a larger percentage of the seats consumed by “hooked” applicants, specifically athletes, since the size of college sports teams varies much less than the number of students at schools that field the usual set of sports teams.

So the percentage of seats available for the “unhooked” is nearly all at Arizona State University, which enrolls about 20,000 new frosh per year (so all of its athletes make only a tiny percentage of them) and considers neither legacy nor race/ethnicity.

But the percentage of seats available for the “unhooked” may be smaller than most assume at Williams College, which enrolls about 550 new frosh per year (of whom nearly 100 (18%) are athletes with “tips” or “protects” in admissions according to http://ephblog.com/2017/10/10/athletic-admissions-details/ ), and which considers both legacy and race/ethnicity to be “important”. Legacy is reportedly about 14%, and URM is reportedly about 21%.

In-between, there is Cornell University, which enrolls about 6,000 new frosh per year (of whom about 200 (3%) are recruited athletes), and lists both legacy and race/ethnicity as “considered”. Legacy is reportedly about 15%, and URM is reportedly about 22%.

Note that legacy, URM, and athlete are not necessarily mutually exclusive (although legacies and athletes in most sports are more likely to be non-URM), and some may have been strong enough applicants to be admitted if there were no such “hook” for them.

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Full pay applicants may represent another favored class at colleges that weight this factor in admission decisions.

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@merc81 Most of the top 30 universities and LACs are need blind so the full pay thing doesn’t help.

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I tend to agree with @merc81, based on my limited experience. I have had several private conversations with CC’ers about this, as well, but when going thru the athletic recruiting process with D19, every elite D3 coach asked us if we would be applying for fin aid. When we said no, the answer was always something along the lines of ‘that’s good’.

I don’t know why D3 coaches (at schools that meet 100% need, and none offer merit aid) would need to know this in a need blind situation. I am sure we can all speculate as to the reasons, but I just don’t know.

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@Mwfan1921 Well, that would help us but all of the LACs that S19 applied to are supposedly need blind except Carleton. Maybe it’s different for recruited athletes going ED.

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@homerdog I personally (with no evidence except for the fact that coaches asked our fin aid plans) do believe that these schools find out the financial status of the 70-90 or so recruited athletes ahead of time (and most of those do go thru the ED round). I also owe you a PM, which I will send this am.

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I read a post recently where it was mentioned that a high percentage of the students at MIT were athletes and there was a large advantage if the applicant is a recruited athlete. I was very surprised to read that but not sure how true it is…

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@yearstogo Out of four kids that were admitted to MIT EA this year that my son knows personally, two are athletes, with good credentials but noticeably inferior to the other two academically. Anecdotal data, but I was very surprised. We’ll see what RD brings.

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Fewer slots available then you think esp when you factor in soft things like colleges accepting more candidates from a particular set of schools ( which they have familiarity with).

@yucca10 @yearstogo MIT’s web site explicitly states that they are looking at academic credentials first and foremost. All of their athletes are accepted on the basis that they can perform in the classroom and balance sports with academics. Perhaps, the students you heard of have that capacity. It’s likely they are high level academic applicants who also are perform well in sports. Actually this is pretty common among elite kids. Being able to balance a difficult course load with sports is rigorous and kids need to be very focused. MIT is NOT accepting good athletes over better academic candidates, they are just factoring in, what can the kid do in the community when he gets there. It’s pretty rare for MIT kids not to be overachievers in multiple areas. They aren’t looking for the kids who grinds his way to A+, but the kids for whom academics and doing other things comes pretty easily. They can tell. And BTW, athletes aren’t recruited at MIT.

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I’m quoting a passage from the book, “The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way Into Elite Colleges and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates,” by Daniel Golden:

“At least one-third of the students at elite universities, and at least half at liberal arts colleges, are flagged for preferential treatment in the admission process. While minorities make up 10 to 15 percent of a typical student body, affluent whites dominate other preferred groups: recruited athletes (10 to 25 percent of students); alumni children, also known as legacies (10 to 25 percent); development cases (2 to 5 percent); children of celebrities and politicians (1 to 2 percent); and children of faculty members (1 to 3 percent). Some applicants benefit from multiple preferences, that is, a legacy may also be an athlete. These estimates might be conservative. Robert Birgeneau, chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, told me that he once calculate the proportion of admissions spaces open to ‘regular students’ at one Ivy League university, which he declined to name. His startling conclusion: students without any nonacademic preference are vying for only 40 percent of the slots. Birgeneau added that Ivy League schools typically understate the number of students whose alumni ties facilitated their admissions.”

This book was written 12 or 13 years ago. Golden thought these percentages “might be conservative” then. Well, I’d say the estimates are much higher now. For one, the admission percentage of URM’s has grown lot more at the elite schools since. Minorities make up lot more than “10 to 15 percent of a typical student body” at these schools today. Back then, too, FLI (First-gen, low-income) wasn’t considered a hook as it’s now become with the elite schools actively recruiting them onto their campus and the admission percentage of FLI is increasing each year at these schools. Add a conservative figure of 10 percent there.

What about “spike”? Not technically a “hook” but those applicants who possesses an extraordinary talent in, say, arts (future Yo-Yo Ma’s), science, politics (David Hogg, remember?), etc.? Add another 2 to 5 percent or so.

My own conclusion is that those non-hooked, non-spiky applicants, who are otherwise competitive (GPA, SAT/ACT, EC’s) are, realistically, vying for only about 20 percent remaining seats at any of these elite schools.

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@TiggerDad I agree. And, on top of all of the categories you mentioned, schools try to keep the male/female ratio around 50 percent if they can. So cut that 20% in half.

I tried to figure out S19’s chances of getting into Williams and, after I took out all of the above categories and allowed for a little overlap between them, I think he’s still vying for something like 100 spots for unhooked males!

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In addition to the reasons cited above, there’re also fewer yardsticks that can be used to differentiate applicants. GPAs are inflated. Standardized tests are made too easy and inadequate to discriminate among good applicants. ECs are easily manipulated. LoRs lack uniformity. The colleges have to look elsewhere. The large number of applicants is also an issue. Other than in arts, very few colleges involve faculty in admission because the sheer number of applications. Faculty would be best positioned to ascertain applicants’ academic capabilities.

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@ucbalumnus – I still have not figured out how to quote, but wanted to point out that Cornell enrolls approximately 3300 freshmen each fall. 5448 admitted for the current class, but 6000 were admitted in prior classes.

Athletic recruit figure is correct, but percentage is twice that due to corrected class size. Legacy % seems to be trending up. Now at 16.8% but had been below 15% four years ago.

I agree with your post, but just wanted to correct the figures. The Ivies all have a similar # of recruited athletes, so the # of ED spots for unhooked applicants will be lower at Dartmouth than at Cornell.

http://irp.dpb.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Profile2018-Freshmen2.pdf

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@Happytimes2001 Sure, they can perform in the classroom. What I mean is suppose two kid have equally awesome grades and scores, but one of them is a state-level athlete and another is a multiple state-level science fair/math contests winner. Will MIT prefer the first one? It seems so to me, but I may be wrong of course.

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I have to object to TiggerDad’s inclusion of “spike” applicants in a conversation focused on “hooks” which, except maybe sports, are mostly variables not related to an applicant’s actual achievements. Wouldn’t you think that the few outrageously competitive schools ( in terms of admissions) would reserve nearly all their spots for students with levels of achievement that are nearly remarkable (or spiked)? Wouldn’t that be what we’d want-as a society? Wouldn’t we want those with immense ability in a given area to be educated in elite schools that admit mostly those with extraordinary abilities? Am I missing something? Should some of those spots now taken by students with extraordinary abilities be reserved for mediocre students who are “well rounded” but not particularly strong in any area? Or maybe those spots should be available for those who are extraordinary in every area? I think those who are extraordinary in all areas are heavily recruited by those schools. And isn’t that a good thing? (not a fan of legacy or development admits)

Counting both 2 and 4 year schools, there are over 4,000 colleges and universities in the US. Why would we not want the most competitive 20 schools choosing the most extraordinary students? It boggles the mind to think people would object to that idea. Correct, those without extraordinary skills in a particular area have very few slots in extraordinary schools intended for the very top students. Why would you want it to be otherwise. The others, the 99.5% of the schools not in the “top” 20 (in terms of competitiveness for admission) have plenty of slots for those who aren’t in the top .5% in terms of achievement and/or ability.

For @Happytimes2001, ask Chris Peterson. I would guess that MIT would be most interested in the student who has the rarest abilities but those that would enhance the campus while the student attended. There are simply millions of students competing at state level science fairs-they are a dime a dozen. The better comparison is to students who win medals at International science fairs. And, I’d put money on MIT favoring someone on the winning IMO team than any athlete on any team. What do you say, Chris Peterson?

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@yucca10 Neither one. MIT will accept the third applicant who has national/ international recognition in multiple areas and likely has some other major achievement as well ( might be sports or anything else). There are many students like this believe it or not. That’s why they have to waitlist. I know two kids who just got waitlisted ( and The am not a student). They are both highly qualified in many areas.

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@lostaccount I have no idea who Chris Peters is. That being said, no one getting into MIT does a local science fair and flies thru the doors of MIT. Even 30 years ago, it wasn’t kids who were just good in science. People often overestimate their own/their kids abilities in the pool of candidates. On CC, folks are a little more savvy and realize there’s a lot out there ( not only in terms of accomplishments, but also how stellar some kids are). And they can sift thru the tens of thousands of files quite easily and determine who fits.
In terms of spike and Tiggerdads comments. While they are mainly correct, there are two special schools to which they rarely apply, Caltech and MIT. There may be others I don’t know of. These two schools do not consider legacy, AA and really are chosing based on stats.

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Happytimes2001, My reference is to @MITChris (Chris Peterson) who is often on this site and represents admissions office at MIT-also instructor there. My response was to TigggerDad’s post which focused on how many slots in “top schools” are taken up by applicants with hooks. But while discussing same, he threw in students with “spikes” (either in particular areas or across all areas but higher than nearly everyone else) as if that left few slots for others. But why would there be slots for others in those few schools? So I think my post was consistent with yours but was disagreeing wtih tiggerDad’s post and to the suggestion that MIT would go for sports over academics, something implied by Yucca10 who said, " What I mean is suppose two kid have equally awesome grades and scores, but one of them is a state-level athlete and another is a multiple state-level science fair/math contests winner. Will MIT prefer the first one? It seems so to me, but I may be wrong of course."