Calcruzer

Observer 1 wrote: "Chances threads burn me up, because they are pointless. Either you have privileged information about a school's admissions practices, in which case they probably don't want you posting here (unless you're duly recognized, and I doubt you would participate in chances threads), or you don't have any privileged information, in which case your answers are worthless or even counterproductive. A lot would be gained, and nothing would be lost (except for site traffic), if chances threads were eliminated."

However, it's not that difficult to get "privileged information" not known by the common person who asks for chances. The average high school junior (the normal "chances" poster) generally doesn't know whether it is more difficult to get into UC Davis or Wisconsin or Georgetown or Stanford or Rice or the University of Florida;--whereas there are quite a few people who normally reply to these posts that knows the details on each school quite well.

A few examples might be in order: let me ask the reader the following:
1. Which of the schools above give greater preference to in-state verus out-of-state?
2. Which schools on the list above consider freshman grades and which ones don't?
3.Which schools have specific departments that are much more difficult to get into than other departments at the same school?
4. Which schools consider music and athletics extensively in granting admissions to possibly "gifted" students in these fields?
5. Which schools are the most expensive of the above?
6. Which ones have the highest GPA overall of the students (it's not what you expect, by the way)?
7. What are the average SAT scores for each school?
8. Which school or school offers scholarships to internationals?
9. Which schools have high diversity (as relates to ethnicity) representative in their student body and which ones don't?
10. Which one uses its own method of calculating GPA separate from how others do it?
11. Which school has the most national merit scholars?
12. At which school will it cost the most for room and board?
13. Which school offers the best financial aid?
14. What are the most common majors at each school (what is the school known for excelling at)?, and
15. Where are each of these schools located?

A person like kyledavid80, lolabelle, moizukh, suze, tokenadult, Andre or flopsy could answer all of the above without having to look up anything--since they know most of this stuff by heart from having answered questions like these over the course of a year or two or three. (and many are specialists in certain schools--like lolabelle for Tufts, Andre for Michigan, suze for Dartmouth, and flopsy for the UCs)

So I'm not entirely sure that chances are all that worthless--although they may be depending upon who is doing the responses.

I believe that Observer1 may be correct in saying that all of us are not experts at who is most likely to get into the very, very top schools, since none of us are admins. However, almost all of us know at least one or two admins (I know one from Wharton and one from the medical school at UC San Francisco) so we do have at least some insight into the thinking behind the determination of who gets in--even if not the exact rating criteria.