<p>In light of the Pizzagirl/Quant Mech colloquy above, I want to clarify that I do not think it takes a “secret flaw” for a top student to be rejected at HYPS. I do think it takes a secret flaw for a top student to be rejected at a reasonable range of colleges.</p>
<p>Now, there is also the question of a not-secret flaw. I know a kid – quite intimately, in fact – who was exceptionally qualified in most respects. He ranked #6 in a class where ##4-8 (other than he) were accepted at one or more of HYSM, Brown, and Columbia. He had 2330 SATs and 2370 SAT IIs, a bunch of EC leadership roles, community volunteering and a history of paid employment. His recommendations were wildly enthusiastic, from teachers (and one employer) who loved him. But . . . his personal essays pretty accurately portrayed the callow, if sweet, somewhat immature person he was at 17. His best essay by far was his almost entirely impersonal common app essay. What I said of him at the time (contrasting him with a classmate who I thought would be more successful with HYPSM applications) was “His next achievement that isn’t simply living up to the high expectations placed on him by others will be his first,” and that came through. It’s not that he had a secret flaw, or that it would have surprised anyone if he had been admitted to HYPS, but it wasn’t that surprising that he wasn’t admitted there if you had actually read his application. He was (and is) a super-great kid, but not a shoo-in at HYPS. (And he was accepted at several great colleges that didn’t have to be as picky as HYPS, at least back then.)</p>
<p>You can use the mathematics to figure out statistically what the chances are for a given student to get accepted/rejected at a given group of schools. You’ll see that it is always possible. Given that there may be other factors in the application that could mean a sure reject is pretty much built into the acceptance stats of these schools since there certainly are kids who apply to them that had no chance from the onset due to some blotch on the records. </p>
<p>There was a young man that was applying to a slew of schools to increase his chances of getting into what he and his family perceived as top schools, and in his case, his problem were test scores in the lower 25%. He didn’t get into a single one. The problem was that he was in that statisical group that has a higher rejection rate than average, and where those kids who do get accepted despite scores in that range, they all tend to have some terrific hook and swing factors to off set that which he did not have. </p>
Yes, that’s they key. A reasonable range of colleges.</p>
<p>Along these lines, our local high school used to publicly post a lot of admission data. THey stopped the last couple years, possible because I posted them here and they drew some snarky comments.</p>
<p>But, anyway, someone (not me, believe me) did an analysis of the data. At least for our school, and at least in 2010, it looks like some top in-state schools could still be considered almost a sure thing at a certain level of numerical achievement. Almost.</p>
<p>BTW, I present this as one piece of information for the entertainment of the thread, not a definitive anything. I know (digitally at least) the person who put this together, and she is very smart and knows what’s going on. This was just a fun project and not presented as a scientific study. I just hope folks can restrain themselves from nitpicking this to death.</p>
<p>Like Erin’s Dad, I was going to link to the story of Andison. Shut out the first time, he took a gap year–which usually does NOT work–and reapplied. He was rejected again when he reapplied to colleges which had rejected him the first time, but accepted by MIT (where he had not applied a year earlier.)</p>
<p>The “secret” flaw doesn’t have to be in the kid; it can be in the application. Essays are often the culprit. Sometimes it’s a LOR.</p>
<p>I also think that some kids pick the wrong schools for round 2. Some schools–UPenn, Princeton, to some extent Brown–come to mind for the fact that they take a heck of a lot of kids in the ED round. It’s very hard for an unhooked kid to get into these schools in round 2, especially if they are the typical applicant. It’s worse, IMO, if the student picks LACs that fill up during the ED round, and the worst scenario for the unhooked kid is applying RD to LACs that have ED 1 and ED2 rounds.</p>
<p>I think it is almost impossible to use statistics to really figure out admissions chances for an applicant to a number of colleges. Simple statistics uses the assumption that the trials (applications) are independent. We know that they are not independent - there is a great deal of similarity between the assessment criteria of HYPS or whatever universe you are talking about. The the criteria are not 100% the same, and we will never know exactly how similar they are. In addition, there is always the oboe player issue. Even if you know that every university orchestra needs one and only one oboe player, you will not know if their one oboe player is a senior and about to graduate, or a sophomore with 2 more years of blowing their horn.</p>
<p>It is tempting to say that if I have a 10% chance of getting in to Harvard, and I apply to 10 schools like Harvard I will have a 65% chance of getting to one of them (1-.9^10). But that only works if the trials (applications) are independent, which they are not. If you get in to Harvard, that probably means that you really do have a greater than 10% chance of getting in to Yale, etc. Similarly, if you are rejected at Harvard, that probably indicates that you have a somewhat lower chance of getting in to Yale than you would have expected before knowing you were going to be rejected by Harvard.</p>
<p>As admissions directors at schools that do “holistic” evaluations have been saying for years, this is something you can’t boil down to a few numbers.</p>
<p>UIUC is one of those state flagships that fails to come anywhere close to meeting need for in-state low-to-middle income students (only a little better than Penn State). Top students from low-to-middle income families in IL or PA do not have the obvious affordable state flagship option that those in NC, FL, WA, VA, MI, and CA do. So the risk of a “shut out” is likely higher for students in IL or PA than in those other states that make their state flagships affordable for low-to-middle income students.</p>
<p>The other thing about this story is that he took a high risk of shut out both times, because it did not look like he had any safeties either time.</p>
<p>"GPAs for MIT applicants were: 4.95 (admit), 4.91, 4.88, 4.88, 4.81, 4.79, 4.78, and 4.73, showing that MIT places high importance on GPA. "</p>
<p>Other than this one statement, I have nothing to nitpick! MIT chose to admit one student is how I see it as opposed to they like high GPA. Lately, they have been limiting their admits to one or two at most schools, probably “spreading the wealth around”.</p>
<p>One would think it’s a good thing that top schools seek to “spread the wealth around” yet time and again on cc you see this ugly entitlement mentality of assuming that multiple kids from the same high school should be accepted. It’s almost as if some don’t realize that being at a high school where multiple kids are accepted by elite schools is already being born on third base in the baseball game of life.</p>
<p>I know a top student who was shut out of Princeton ED in Dec. She will get into an excellent school but will hear soon from the other Ivies.</p>
<p>The thing with his though is that I don’t think it’s the student. I think it’s the attitude of the parents and their influence on their D. They assumed that their D would definitely get into Princeton. They had absolutely no doubt. I think that may have influenced their approach to the application process.</p>
<p>My D was applying to Penn but we approached as if her Odds were no better than any other top student and worked very hard to make sure our D represented herself as best as possible. </p>
<p>Just conjecture but I agree that a student doesn’t have to be flawed to be rejected. There are more top students than places at all f the top ten or twenty schools in any given year.</p>
<p>I think this is true too. That’s why I was surprised when my daughter told me that 4 kids in her school is accepted to MIT this year (1 EA, 3 RD). The school is public/SoCal and about 850 API.</p>
<p>My kid was certainly one whose essays may not have been considered up to par, I totally get that. The fact is that as long as I can remember the top dozen kids or so at our high school have fabulous choices. Year after year, they aren’t getting shut out at all. They may not get into every college they apply to, but they do fine.</p>
<p>In regards to the link on post #36: (and going off topic)</p>
<p>One thing the article doesn’t mention is the reason students choose certain schools. I can tell you that Stanford and Harvard have the very best financial aid of the HPYSM schools, followed closely by Princeton. I am unfamiliar with Yale’s aid but I can tell you that MIT’s aid is simply not as generous and includes loans in their packages for middle class families (even families that make between 70-79K). </p>
<p>This is definitely a factor for students choosing among these top schools.</p>