Why do seemingly perfect students get rejected from Ivies?

<p>^I think the fundamental reason that people disagree when it comes to the role athletics vs academics should play in admissions is not that atheltics does not take work - yes, it takes a ton - but rather that such a large prioritization of athletics seems out of place at institutions that exist to educate. Not to get on a soapbox, but I wish we handled adolescent sports in the US like they do in Europe.</p>

<p>Anyway, I think I fall into OP’s category when it comes to stats, but better in the EC department. I’ve already been rejected from Chicago, Caltech, and MIT (I understand Caltech because my essays sucked, but the other two make me sad. I worked so hard on my MIT essays especially). But I also realized that in addition to reach schools, I could apply to match and safety schools with competitive scholarship options, and I ended up getting the Cornelius Vanderbilt scholarship. Full tuition to a top20 is not bad in my book, but I will still probably get rejected by even more colleges: Harvard, Princeton, Stanford…</p>

<p>The unfortunate thing about having high scores and grades but not having something huge like Intel STS finalist, going to an international X olympiad, starting some service campaign, etc. is that you are seen as a robot, even if nobody would think that if they met you face to face and got to know you. I think it in part has to do with jealousy (just like everyone demonizes the anonymous uber-wealthy people, but not ones that they actually know) and also with an inability to relate when it comes to people who believe those scores to be unattainable (at least for them). </p>

<p>Colleges statistically cannot accept entire classes of perfect scorers, I don’t know where that phrase comes from. The perfect SAT + ACT scorers in a given year add up to about 1500, which isn’t even enough to fill all of Harvard’s class. Even if you go down to 35 and 2350+ kids, there is still space. The fact of the matter is that an approach that looks entirely at scores and grades and (for the sake of fairness) other academic achievements would create a homogeneous class, likely mostly composed of STEM kids and people with interests in law, medicine, economics, etc, a class that is mostly white and asian kids from middle class backgrounds or higher, and a class that is decidedly nerdy. Elite colleges these days do everything they can to create as diverse of a class as possible, in part because of diversity for diversity’s sake, and also to work against the stereotype that Ivies are only attended by certain people.</p>

<p>Look, I’m no major fan of athletics at the college level and it would be fine with me if it were all intramural, but if one REALLY holds the position that a particular college / university shouldn’t favor athletic prowess in admissions (or give scholarships to athletes, which I recognize the Ivies don’t, but some other elite colleges do), it seems that the only right position is to then say that you aren’t going to apply to that place because their values don’t mesh with yours. </p>

<p>Otherwise, it’s the usual blather about how you don’t like how the club selects its members, but you sure would gnaw off your right arm to be a member of the club. If you think the place is sooooo overrun with (take your pick) “undeserving” athletes, legacies, development candidates, faux-charity-starting-suck-ups, URM’s, etc. – then why do you want to go so badly? </p>

<p>I think you can be a fan of an institution in general but recognize flaws in it that you would fix if you could. I’d rather go to a school with a large portion of people that got in not solely academically (but are still smart) and also a large portion of those that are uber-smart than a school with lots of rather average students and a small cohort of top ones. Something can be better than other options yet still have problems.</p>

<p>Funny that this topic generates so much conversation. I came back to it a few days later, and it’s on page 10. Guess it touches a nerve.</p>

<p>But anyway, I had a slightly different answer to the Question posed at the top:</p>

<p><< Because admissions departments, even at Ivies, are staffed by a team of humans, who are not only imperfect, but are given a rather impossible job. And they come with a lot of institutional and personal biases as well. They have bad selection algorithms: they look for patterns where patterns don’t apply. (And generally they’re trying to assess people much smarter than they used to be, too.) So they make a lot of mistakes. A 25% error rate wouldn’t surprise me. That would explain at least some of the “How did this bozo get in?” and the “Why didn’t this star get in any of those schools?” reactions. >></p>

<p>Anyway, have fun. I couldn’t resist one more comment.</p>

<p>@monydad and @jonri—I realize this conversation has moved on from Cornell, but I am only catching up now. </p>

<p>I completely agree that historically A&S was a much more selective admit than ILR, but that gap has narrowed tremendously, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this year we see the admit rates for the two colleges converging.</p>

<p>For the class admitted last year, A&S had a 15.2% admit rate and ILR had 16.2%. (BTW–39% of ILR freshmen were NY state residents and 21% of A&S students were NYS.) ILR’s admit rate three years earlier was 20%. They embarked on a targeted mail and email campaign these past two years, attempting to raise awareness of a unique program, but one that does lend itself to many directions of study. (As Jonri correctly highlights the program’s flexibility.)</p>

<p>The university’s overall admit rate is held down by the 7700+ male engineering students.</p>

<p>Interesting observation about the redirection of NYS applicants to the endowed colleges. The individual colleges’ admission departments operate on a very individual basis, but perhaps the university is achieving a revenue goal by offering the primary & secondary choices. The individual schools do not appear to like the primary/secondary option.</p>

<p>Back to the regular debate now!</p>

<p>@huehuehue32, probably the most honest answer on this thread - and it comes from someone currently involved in the process. Most people don’t seem to get that the amount of athletes + international contest participants + legacy, is still not enough to make up the entire class. In fact as Harvard Dean of Admissions stated in an interview the majority of their accepted students are (relatively) “in the middle” all-rounders, like my friend.</p>

<p>@carmenita, perhaps star football qb would be interesting enough for you? I am not familiar with all his extracurriculars, but then again what YOU find interesting may not be what Harvard finds interesting. If Harvard took your type of “interesting kids” lets just say it may not be able to hold on to the top spot for much longer.</p>

<p>@MYOS1634, I was making a larger point about the current lack of interest Americans have for actual education (math, science, problem solving, etc.) when mentioning those stats. Also thanks for proving my point in your description of “unbiversities.” </p>

<p>No I am surprised that my friend did not get into Cornell, because the four other students accepted to Cornell were significantly less interesting non athletes who had lower scores and less interest in the school. In fact as I described, one of the students was a pathological cheater. </p>

<p>I not sure why you would assume that FOUR colleges would review his application in the exact same way? Even the supplemental essays, or simply the kind of people EACH college needs that year affects the admissions process. These FOUR colleges, were the only ones he was rejected from, and all with the IVY LEAGUE banner. What is going on here that causes this to happen? </p>

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<p>Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that after you are admitted you are not under any obligation to still be an athlete at the college level. You may lose some money, but if that doesn’t matter, you can just ditch the sport. </p>

<p>You don’t even lose money. Harvard (and all of the Ivy League and NESCAC schools) give financial aid on the basis of need. They don’t give out athletic scholarships, although there are small perks for athletes at some of these schools.</p>

<p>OK - there are too many pages for me to read through all of the postings – but how about whether the admissions rep felt that the applicant really felt that the school was the “right fit” instead of just applying so that he or she could say they got into “an Ivy.” I gotta be honest – I am always dumbfounded when I hear kids say that they applied to Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Columbia and Dartmouth. I am just using those 5 as examples. These are VERY different schools – and one of the few things they have in common are that they are all Ivy League schools. </p>

<p>By the way, another factor here is the coin flipping fallacy.</p>

<p>Let’s say, for sake of argument, that this candidate is in the top 10% of applicants - so there are 3,000 applicants with similar profiles. But the school only accepts 2,000. So he has a really good shot, but not guaranteed. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get in.</p>

<p>Now, he also applies to 3 other similar schools - and gets rejected from each school. The question is “what is going on here?”</p>

<p>But each decision is separate, just like a coin flip. Just because a coin lands heads up the first three times, it doesn’t mean that the coin is more or less likely than 50% to land heads up on the next coin flip.</p>

<p>@humanities2014 I’m not saying he’s not an outstanding athlete. My high school has one of the best high school football teams in the country, but the guy cannot take advantage of a Harvard education (not just the degree) as well as my other friend could. This is why I feel it is unfair.</p>

<p>What’s “fair”? Harvard can’t admit ALL of the kids who could take advantage of a Harvard education - there just isn’t enough room. Do you think there is some magic level of kids-who-are-deserving-of-Harvard that just happens to be the exact same number as the number of freshman beds they offer? </p>

<p>Anyway, this is only a problem if you think that Harvard has the corner on excellent education, which clearly it doesn’t. </p>

<p>" the NEWER notion that Ivies are just your run of the mill selective college should also be dispelled. Unfortunately we live in a world where name recognition does matter, and the difference in education quality between a school like NYU and one like Yale is undeniable."</p>

<p>Of course there’s a difference between NYU and Yale - but there isn’t a meaningful difference in the grand scheme of things between Yale and maybe 20, 30 other top colleges and universities. </p>

<p>“During the last college process, I had a friend who graduated salutatorian of his high school (400+ students). He was of Asian descent and had a 2360 SAT score and participated in tons of extracurriculars. He applied to Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, and Dartmouth, and was rejected by all four of them.”</p>

<p>Leaving aside homeschoolers and international students for the sake of argument - there are 30,000 valedictorians and 30,000 salutatorians every year. Do all 60,000 of them “deserve” admittance to the Ivy League? How would that work?</p>

<p>@Pizzagirl That is neither what I said nor what I was implying. Rather I was implying that, in my opinion, a student who is not strong academically should not be accepted to such an elite academic institution as Harvard is over students who are much stronger, simply because they are good at a sport.</p>

<p>You people are missing the point. It’s not totally about high scores and GPA. It’s about the practicality of an applicant to live in a world of opportunists and manipulators who always strive to be on the top. It’s about the promise shown by the student with a sense of determination and problem solving so that he or she can be progressive in life and can live a successful life. They don’t just want “TOP SCORERS”, they want those people who are future leaders, visionaries and exemplars. They want people who, even in miserable and hopeless conditions, get their ■■■■ together and strive and struggle, keeping hope against hope because its not just the good grades that is gonna benefit your future generations, its the ability to think outside the box and to be unique in your decisions and works so that you can cause a major change in the world and can be able to give back the world what it has provided you. I am a Pakistani student and I live by this methodology.</p>

<p>tom, Harvard states that it “considers” academic factors on par with the nonacademic factors. The impression that only academic factors determine admission defies the reality. Didn’t everyone already know this? </p>

<p>I know it defies reality and the status quo, I am simply stating my opinion on how our academic system should function. I feel that students who are more successful and more ambitious academically deserve more credit in an academic system than their peers who are good at sports. First and foremost, colleges are supposed to be academic institutions.</p>