whitecadillac

i hear that a considerable amount of people apply to ivies that really--realistically--have almost no chance. (i'm talking 3.0 gpa's, 1800 sat's, no ec's, or whatever the case may be). what % of applicants do you think are like this, that don't even make the first cut?

chibistar6

I'd say as high as 10%, but it's a just a completely wild guess...

rockermcr

Two thirds.

With an acceptance rate of under 10%, admissions officers can't realistically discuss over a third of the applicants in pools of 22,000-30,000.

ZishuAW

I think...20%? Random guess.

mifune

I have heard that 90% of those who apply to Harvard are academically qualified (3.6 UW GPA I believe is the only criterion). The figure is likely higher if SAT is taken into consideration. But applicants who are minorities, athletes, or legacies eliminate any slight increase in admissions chances, however.

cdld2008

omg... then i gotta freak myself out even more

christiansoldier

I know a lot from my school. I'm guessing somewhere around 25-30%.

pigs_at_sea

they probably run their stats through a computer thingy, using sat score cutoffs, and the people who don't make the base score are tossed out immediately unless they're special in some other way

but believeeee me there areeee sat score cutoffs

cadillac

According to this piece of literature I read a while ago, admissions officers will reject 20-30% of applicants upon first read. I don't know if this means they are academically lacking, or just too robotic?

pigs_at_sea

^that's most likely with just the SAT score and gpa cutoffs

ex: anyone below 700 gets tossed out unless they're an athlete, underrepresented, or the next einstein

T26E4

pigs: yours source is....?

totallysunshine

yes pigs, i doubt it works like that. the difference between a 700 and a 690 is one question on one saturday morning.
take totallysunshine as an example. she has a 690 in one section but a 780 in another. is she necessarily any less qualified than someone who has two 730s in the same two sections?

cdld2008

hmmmmmmmmm
i've been wondering about this too. I used to think there's a score cutoff but now i'm not so sure. Or the score cutoff could be different for international students. I don't know...

adaa

there cant possibly be score cut offs
i know loads of people who got in with low 700's, or below (im not one of them, but im just saying)
and some people just cannot sit for 4 hours, staring at a paper, so they wouldnt want to miss out on some genius, just because a computer didn think his/her stats were high enough:P
ergo the objectivity/subjectivity debate :P

totallysunshine

there is definitely a TOEFL score cut-off.