<p>whoops, you’re right Phantasmagoric. Stanford did win in 2002 (57%) and 2003 (52%). i’d have to say that the college admissions landscape was different back then, and I think that data from the last 7 years is more relevant. but I didn’t mean to mislead – i should have looked farther back in the history of this, and I should have said “in the last 7 years, Stanford has not won against Yale.” sorry about that!</p>
<p>Again, there is always another side of everything. H’s optional, open-end supplemental essay(s) are actually much harder than “Why Yale” and the like. In 150 words, what and how much you can really say something in depth and original about WHY? I bet most people’s most words, no matter how long they pondered and how hard they tried, have been literarily repeated many times by many others over the years and don’t really reveal anything meaningful and/or personal. Just think about it - in last three years, how many enrolled H (or P) without hesitation after sweated that silly little piece with their best efforts and got into the SCEA (like S did). I also bet most, if not all, truly motivated and competitive applicants would always take the “optional”, “not-required” chance whenever possible to shine some extra lights of themselves, meanwhile the others might feel not like to work more unnecessarily or simply have nothing more to offer. Of course, there might also be a few who feel so confident that there’s no need for anything extra… In either case, though, isn’t it a (rather clever and simple) way to see (at least part of) the candidates’ real drive, personality, character, and ability? It is a way for the applicant to (subconsciously) show if s/he is a “good fit”, too.</p>
<p>Hparent,</p>
<p>how are you refuting my point that Harvard’s EZ application helps it bring in a bunch of unqualified app’s?</p>
<p>you said – “H’s optional, open-end supplemental essay(s) are actually much harder than “Why Yale” and the like.” </p>
<p>take a look at the HYPS applications. it’s not an “either/or” situation – it’s not like Harvard has the 2nd optional essay and the other schools have only these short questions. each of the YPS applications has BOTH the short questions PLUS a supplemental essay. it’s just that Harvard’s 2nd essay is optional and their essays are required. and Harvard has NO short school specific questions. at YPS, applicants do the 2nd essay plus they write other stuff as well (like the “Why Yale” or Princeton and Stanford’s special questions). to summarize: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>harvard’s application = common app + supplement w/optional essay</p></li>
<li><p>YPS’s applications = common app + supplement w/required essay and other school-specific questions</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Yale, Princeton, and Stanford undoubtedly lose applications from kids who aren’t willing to write a 2nd essay and also write out those short school-specific answers. and as you said “most, if not all, truly motivated and competitive applicants” would write a 2nd essay whether required or not. </p>
<p>so what does the harvard gambit do? it gets applications from a bunch of kids who aren’t motivated. not generally the kind of students whom Harvard – which looks for smart, ambitious people – would want TO ADMIT. but Harvard isn’t trying to admit them anyway. they’re just trying to make it EZ for under-motivated students to submit. </p>
<p>i agree that the EZ application is – to use your words – a “clever, simple way” on Harvard’s part to do something – but the “something” is this: to bring in a bunch of unqualified applicants. whom Harvard can then reject right away, allowing it to announce – to those unfamiliar with the real college admissions picture – that it has a lower admit rate than its peer schools.</p>
<p>sam2be,</p>
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</p>
<p>I think it goes in cycles. If you look at Stanford’s data, you’ll see that there was a short time when it was losing to almost all of HYPM, but before and after that, it wins against most or all but H. When you consider that each of HYPSM is strongly committed to beating the others, and that all of them have a legitimate shot of beating at least some of the others, it makes sense that they would go in cycles, much like a tug-of-war: sometimes a school will enjoy more wins than others, and then they’ll switch places. I don’t think it’s likely we’ll see a constant equilibrium of 50-50 across all these schools; that would require a degree of certainty in admissions that we probably won’t ever have. It’ll instead hover around the 50% mark, tugging back and forth ad infinitum. Of course, it’s likely that Harvard has always won against all of them (it came close to losing to Stanford a few years ago, 43-57), but its margin of advantage has steadily gone down, so I think it too will enter in the tug-of-war cycle, if it hasn’t already.</p>
<p>I am interested to see what the next cycle is like, since all of HYPS will have SCEA. Since these are the schools that MIT has most cross-admits with (and ever loses to), MIT will effectively have de-facto SCEA as well. It might come closer to that equilibrium than we would think.</p>
<p>edit: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Agreed. Stanford alone has 3 additional essays (shorter than the main one), and then a bunch of smaller ones, and the admissions office has talked about adding more essays (which some speculate is to deter applicants). I remember there were people in my high school who could have gotten into Stanford but really didn’t want to fill out another supplement, esp. given that Stanford’s was longer than others’. So they didn’t bother applying.</p>
<p>Phantasmagoric,</p>
<p>your story about others not applying to Stanford - i definitely believe it. and it’s a credit to Stanford that they’re even thinking about making the application lengthier. they seem to care about making sure that they read applications from those who are interested enough to put some effort into the application.</p>
<p>the only thing I don’t agree with in your post is this statement: you say, “If you look at Stanford’s data, you’ll see that there was a short time when it was losing to almost all of HYPM, but before and after that, it wins against most or all but H.”</p>
<p>when you look at Stanford’s data, you see that there was a time when Stanford was losing to everyone. before and after that, it’s not true that “it wins against most or all but H.” instead, the data show that before and after that, Stanford wins against only P and M. Stanford never has won against H, and it hasn’t won against Yale except in 2002 and 2003.</p>
<p>^ actually, there hasn’t been a single year where Stanford lost to all of them (in 2008, when it lost to Princeton, Stanford still beat MIT, and had 49% with Yale). A few years before that, Stanford was beating YPM, and in the years between was beating at least one of them. After that, it’s beating P and M and drawing with Y. The point is that you can quite clearly see the cyclical nature of cross-admit stats in that historical data: you see that it dips during a specific time period, which means that it was higher before and higher after (which is the definition of a “dip”).</p>
<p>FYI, my son decided that he really didn’t have anything more to say, so he didn’t write the optional essay. He was accepted EA and is graduating on May 26th after having had an extremely successful tenure at Harvard. I think that some of you are over-analyzing the reason for the extra essay. I believe that it gives the applicant an opportunity to say something about him/herself that might not be revealed in the rest of the application.</p>
<p>Good luck to all!</p>
<p>enoughalready: we’re not over-analyzing the “reason” for having an essay. we’re analyzing the “reason” Harvard makes the essay optional and asks little else of the applicant in the supplement.</p>
<p>obviously, there are many students whose stats/rec’s/awards/common-app-essay are more than enough to testify to their qualifications for admission to Harvard. Harvard doesn’t need a thing more to admit them. your son was clearly one of them. congratulation to him!</p>
<p>what we’re discussing is students at the opposite end of the spectrum – students who aren’t qualified to get into Harvard. Harvard’s stripped down application makes it easy for those students to apply. that makes for a bigger applicant pool. but not a bigger pool of qualified applicants.</p>
<p>to illustrate, let’s look at the other extreme: Georgetown, for instance, doesn’t use the common app, but rather asks applicants to submit its own application. the Dean there says he only wants applications from serious candidates – students who want to go to Georgetown and feel qualified to attend. he thinks that jumping through some hoops to apply makes those who are clearly unqualified and those who are disinterested think twice before applying. Georgetown’s admit rate could be much lower if it used the common app and just an EZ supplement. </p>
<p>YPS aren’t like Georgetown – they use the common app. but they also have a supplement that requires some effort. </p>
<p>apples and oranges</p>
<p>Well said, sam2be, on all counts.
I am curious to see what happens with this cycle and going forward. From what I have observed, the scales are tipping more strongly in Stanford’s favor and will continue to do so.</p>
<p>I’m not! Class of 2015 baby! :)</p>
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<p>That’s nice, and having a tougher application may cull out “disinterested” applicants because they can’t easily throw their hat in the ring, but it doesn’t do anything to ensure that those applicants are better qualified, only that they may be more interested in attending if accepted.</p>
<p>I rejected Harvard during the search process.</p>
<p>^LOL, good for you :D!</p>
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</p>
<p>There are high school students out who have all the qualifications to be admitted but never apply because they perceive Harvard to be too expensive, too selective, or that they would never have a chance. They may have unusual circumstances, such as not being able to pursue ECs because of a lack of opportunity or having to work to supplement family income, or not having high standardized test scores because a rigorous curiculum like the AP is not available to them. These are the students who would benefit the most from attending Harvard, yet they are the people who are the least likely to apply. </p>
<p>Some students may have a special talent that Harvard seeks even though the other parts of their profile may be slightly lacking. Some may be very academically accomplished but have another school in mind as their first choice—having an easy application will lure them to apply so that Harvard can court them afterwards (Georgetown, in contrast, would lose a lot of qualified applicants). Having a wider pool holds a variety of recruitment benefits for the school besides the lowering of admission percentages.</p>
<p>What ethnicity are you, xrCalico23? I ask in order to know whether or not to respect your posts on CC. Can’t trust dem blatinos who dun deserve Harvard but get in through AA!</p>
<p>edit: does this satirical post considered a problem post? you decide!</p>
<p>^It’s a mystery.
Problem Post: check. Reason: for tempting further stalking of my profile on CC.</p>
<p>I agree with xrCalico: One of my good friends is here, and only tossed in an application because he thought he should reach for one ridiculous school. (He did apply legitimately to Cornell, as a high-but-not-unthinkable reach.) He is eminently qualified, but his school had sent, like, one kid to our state flagship in the past couple years. It had certainly not sent anyone to an Ivy, so he didn’t think he had a snowball’s chance in hell. Harvard’s easy application made him convinced that it was worth it to apply, while he didn’t think he had enough of a chance at, say, Princeton, to write their supplemental essays. So on balance, it might be more of a number-stuffer than a legitimate way of getting qualified candidates who don’t know it to apply, it definitely also has the latter effect.</p>
<p>harvard is cool</p>
<p>Turned down Harvard and Yale for Princeton! I always thought I wanted to go to Harvard, but once it became a real option I realized that it wasn’t the place for me… It doesn’t even have a student center! The undergraduate focus at Princeton is real and I am so excited for next year.</p>
<p>Just gonna simply say that I have not yet found a school that I would turn down Harvard for. :)</p>
<p>Hey Ivy2012. Have you heard of “Stanford?” :P</p>