What *REALLY* does it take to get into Stanford?

Parents Forum
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<p>So is Stanford different from any other elite college, such as HYP or Duke? I think not.</p>

<p>A few years back, in my D’s admissions cycle we saw a lot of the same randomness. For instance, a classmate of hers that was admitted to and attended Stanford (and did remarkably well) was rejected by U Chicago and Yale. </p>

<p>But perhaps it is helpful to be reminded that being rejected by Stanford or its peers doesn’t mean a whole lot. I know of one rejectee who went on to beat all of her peers in post-grad honors for example. </p>

<p>As others have said, there’s a lot of randomness in this process. And this is nothing new. It’s been going on for at least a decade. </p>

<p>I’m sure it is tougher for kids on the west coast who don’t want to fly 2000 miles to college. Your options are a bit more constrained than for kids in the midwest or east. Maybe that’s why it hurts more?</p>

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<p>I think that it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that what Stanford wants is <em>more,</em> when actually <em>less</em> would be ok with them–what they are looking for is <em>different.</em></p>

<p>A while ago, Stanford admissions had a comment on the web site that they did not follow the philosophy “The one with the most AP’s wins.” (Not sure whether it is still there.) It is easy to mis-read that, and think it just means that the AP-lites do not give any admissions boost–perfectly logical. Or to think that it means that a science star does not need to have AP USH and AP European History for admissions, or vice versa for a humanist–again, reasonable. However, I am beginning to suspect that what they really mean is that an outstanding performance in an extremely rigorous course load will not necessarily cause you to “win” with Stanford admissions, even if coupled with other desirable components in the application.</p>

<p>I think that the Stanford admissions people weigh personality quite heavily. I am not yet able to pin-point the qualities that they are looking for. I definitely do not mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with the personalities of students that they don’t accept! Not at all! But they do seem to be looking for a “type,” to a certain extent. Even amidst the diverse pool of the admitted students, there are some personality characteristics in common. If they still have online the opening lines of some essays that the Stanford admissions committee members liked, I think you will see a commonality in the underlying tones of most of the essays, despite the differences in topics. </p>

<p>I also think that Stanford is looking for students who will definitely choose Stanford, if admitted. This seems to be true despite the fact that yield has been dropped from the college ratings algorithm.</p>

<p>I actually do think that Stanford admissions is looking for something different from HYP and also from M, newmassdad. Admittedly, this opinion is based on a relatively small sample size: personal knowledge + some CC outcomes. Still, REA at Stanford often clobbers some students that I’d put into the “run-of-the-mill-outstanding” category; yes, I know it’s an oxymoron. I think this fits the young woman in the article mentioned at the start of this thread. There’s also the REA defer/deny combination–same thing, with a time delay. From my observations, these students generally have better odds elsewhere in the HYPM+C category (still, not a sure thing).</p>

<p>With the perspective I’ve gained through CC, I currently hold the view that this is just something that Stanford admissions does, not infrequently. They are not totally predictable, either, though. They do accept some of the “run-of-the-mill-outstanding” applicants, so a student in that category should apply, if interested; however, I’d advise against REA.</p>

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<p>Move to Palo Alto and go to Gunn High…</p>

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<p>Stumbled across this interesting article from the Stanford student newspaper Aug 2010
[Diversity</a> remains ongoing struggle | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/08/12/diversity-remains-ongoing-struggle/]Diversity”>http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/08/12/diversity-remains-ongoing-struggle/)</p>

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<p>Households under $100K are considered low income?? Such a strange perspective. Thats kinda like saying IQ’s under 100 are cognitively impaired.</p>

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<p>Also, I’ll suggest QuantMech’s Law: Once a student’s SAT scores have exceeded the average of the scores of the admissions committee members, a further increase in the scores will not improve the student’s odds of admission.</p>

<p>(I know there is some statistical evidence to counter this, but on the whole . . .)</p>

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<p>I believe that at any very selective place it goes like this: first - connected ones, second - URMs, third - kids who saved humanity from AIDS and malaria, forth - regular average graduated #1 from HS (valedictorians) or top college GPAs (if applying to Grad. school). I have told my D. to make sure to be in group 4. So far it has been working, let’s see how it works at Grad. School level.</p>

<p>However, as OP stated, it does not work all the time. But regular kids like my D. cannot do any more than that. So, we do not worry about where she is not getting, since it is out of her control, we are very proud of her for the places that she got in.</p>

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<p>Truth is, none of us know how Stanford or its peers make their admissions decisions.</p>

<p>We DO KNOW that what they publicly state as their approach is not completely accurate (I would suggest bordering on dishonest). How do we know this? Just read any of the several studies of the admissions process that have been published over the past decade, such as “The Chosen” or “The Early Admissions Game”. </p>

<p>These and other references have pretty effectively shown, IMHO, that these places give a lot of weight in the process to things they don’t like to talk about publicly. And as many of us know, judge by behavior, not by what people say. </p>

<p>MiamiDAP, How true!</p>

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<p>While it is impossible for OUTSIDERS to KNOW why a particular student is accepted or rejected an an elite school, it’s entirely callous to label the successful applicants “lucky.” </p>

<p>People who actually KNOW students who attend schools such as Stanford also KNOW that luck has nothing to do with having received one of the prized letter sent by Dean Shaw’s office. What outsiders might fail to understand that each one of the “lucky” applicants offered to Stanford a very good reason to be accepted, ranging from academic to athletic excellence via overcoming numerous challenges. </p>

<p>People should not confuse the statistical odds of admissions with mere luck. When people do acquire lottery tickets, they all face the same odds but share the same … qualifications. Not all students who apply to Stanford have the same odds and the same … qualifications.</p>

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<p>Conversely, one should not claim to outstanding, hard working rejects that the fact they were not accepted necessarily means they have lesser qualifications. It merely means they do not have the “right” qualifications to be accepted.</p>

<p>Since nobody can spell out the exact requirements in a manner that would allow one with any certainty to know exactly what they are looking for, it is “luck” to the extent that an accepted applicant happened to have the particular combination of attributes they were looking for. Because -</p>

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<p>I’m certain that Stanford also rejects numerous candidates meeting the above description.</p>

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<p>Is there a school in the country that is offering an admission ticket who will definitely NOT choose tat school? </p>

<p>Every admission officer in the country hopes that the selected students will definitely accept the admission offer.</p>

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<p>True, but to fully understand the impact of luck versus qualifications, one should look at the cross-admission and cross-rejections. Despite the explosion of increased and multiple applications, the number of well-qualified students who FAIL to gain admittance at a competitive school remains low. The reality is that most students DO find a school that fits their academic profile. </p>

<p>Fwiw, there is a world of difference between an applicant who was rejected by Yale but accepted at Chicago or Harvard and an applicant who was rejected by Yale but ended up “settling” for a school that is neither highly selective nor more selective. This explains why the terms lottery and luck are so popular among the second group! The “you-never-know” and whimsical application are indeed akin to buying a lottery tickets and hoping for Dame Fortune.</p>

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<p>THe operative phrase being “A” school. Not necessarily this school. So there is some subset for which the term “luck” might nearly apply - particularly the subset of students accepted to Harvard, Yale or Princeton but rejected from Stanford. And I don’t think a person in this group can reasonably say they could predict their chances before application, otherwise they would not have bothered applying to Stanford.</p>

<p>But I guess your second paragraph indicates basic agreement with this.</p>

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<p>Bovertine, what happens to the elusive “best fit” and “building a class” concepts that are recognized on this site? Should we assume that the students who apply to Stanford are the same students that are sought by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the rest of the East Coast colleges. Could a Brown student be a mere copycat of a Columbia or Cornell student? </p>

<p>Fwiw, how many students are there who were rejected by one school but accepted at a SIMILAR school and DO cling to the notion that the original school made a mistake? How many parents of such students?</p>

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<p>I finally logged off College Confidential for good … This should get the CC inquiring minds going!</p>

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I don’t know about any of this. I’m assuming these concepts are true, but I’ve got no particular insight.</p>

<p>But what I do know is that if every applicant could figure out exactly what a particular school wanted before they applied, nobody would be rejected anywhere. Unless they wanted a rejection letter for their memorabilia. Or wanted to donate the application fee to the school.</p>

<p>Heck, I doubt the schools even know exactly what they want before they start reading appplications.</p>

56

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<p>So did many other applicants who do not get accepted. The lottery ticket analogy isn’t “applying to Stanford is like buying a lottery ticket – every applicant has the same chance and it’s pure luck the same way that every lottery ticket holder has the same chance and it’s pure luck.” WITHIN the set of applicants, there is a level at which everyone has the qualifications of “could go here, could handle the work, could be a good addition to campus.” At that point, that’s where the lottery comes in. You’re an oboe player from Montana and your app got read right after two other oboe players from western states. You wrote your essay on Harry Potter and you got the adcom who has a soft spot for HP versus the adcom in the office next door who is so over HP. You impressed one adcom with how you handled yourself in an interview whereas you could have just as easily not-impressed another adcom. This is just human nature. It doesn’t take away from the accomplishments of the kids admitted to Stanford (et al) to note this.</p>

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<p>xiggi, I’m not sure that I agree with this. There are more bright students than there are spots to accommodate them all. Which is not the worst thing in the world – plenty of bright students do fine at large state u’s and the like, too.</p>

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<p>Yes, Pizzagirl. Great post #56!</p>

<p>Human nature does influence the decision to accept or deny. Luck plays a role. The vast majority of the candidates are all amazing students who could do the work, and yet, each year students will be turned away for one reason or another. </p>

<p>That doesn’t dismiss the achievements of those who matriculate. </p>

<p>I know a student last year that was turned down by Stanford and accepted by most of the schools in the Ivy League and MIT. Yet, he still wonders what he did wrong…which is silly. He didn’t do anything “wrong”. He was simply turned away, and is now happily studying on the East Coast in an amazing program with the kind of aid package that would make any parent happy, to boot. I think this was his first “failure” in life.</p>

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<p>xiggi, of course I don’t think any school is offering admission to students they think will NOT choose that school under any circumstances. To a certain extent, this accounts for “Tufts syndrome” (may be unfair to Tufts). </p>

<p>However, it appears to me that Stanford is more concerned about yield than, say, Harvard (Home of “Yield? Of course they are coming here.”) </p>

<p>Stanford is also (in my opinion) more concerned about yield than many lower-ranked schools. There are many schools out there that are still offering admissions to students whom the admissions reps consider somewhat unlikely to come–admissions reps at top students’ safety schools have an idea of the odds, and in fact they have to use them to decide how many students to admit all together.</p>

<p>So, this would make it look as though Stanford’s REA is a <em>good</em> thing, to indicate interest . . . except that it doesn’t seem to work that way in practice.</p>

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<p>PG, are we really disagreeing? Please take a closer look at what I wrote. </p>

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<p>In the above sentence, I did not discuss highly selective schools (which might have been the context of a thread about Stanford’s whimsical rejection) but wrote about … competitive schools matching the applicant’s profile. </p>

<p>When moving away from the extremely narrow realm of HYPS and the additional 15 to 20 schools that cause so much spilled ink, the situation changes drastically. For instance, while one can look at the admisssion rates for Cal and UCLA, should one not look at the overall admission rate to the entire UC system and notice that about 3 out 4 students DO get accepted to what many consider as the best state school system in the world? </p>

<p>Further, in looking at statistics, don’t we tend to believe that there are more students who score extremely on standardized tests? We know that fewer than 400 earn a perfect score on the SAT, but how many students are there really in the country who score aboved 750 on the verbal part of the SAT? Now compare that number to the spots open at the top 50 universities in the country. </p>

<p>Obviously, one could decide to look at other criteria such as high school GPAs, ranks, and ECs. However, since the College Board reports that more than 40 percent of high schoolers in the country who take the SAT earn a A average and that we have over 30,000 valedictorians, such numbers appear rather pedestrian. </p>

<p>All in all, my point was that students who offer an academic, athletic, or EC profile that is well-above the average have few problems in landing a spot at a school that matches their profile. And yes, this means a school that is well-abve the average!</p>