<p>Wedge, I don’t know; maybe there’s some confusion, I wasn’t the one who said a perfect SAT gives you a 50% chance.</p>
<p>With the athletes and “well-lopsided” (quoting from the Harvard admissions website) students with spectacular ECs, yet having sub-4.0s and marginal 95th+ percentile test scores (meaning 50 students in a school of 950 would score equal)… quoting numbers alone is moot. I wonder how much admission officers actually look at GPAs and test scores, given all of the 35,000 applications that aren’t hs seniors playing the lottery have equal ultra-top numbers. </p>
<p>Since YouTube is loading slowly, I’m going to devote some effort to this reply.</p>
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The user indicated that he was a ■■■■■ in an earlier thread, and the above seems rather ridiculous and provocative.</p>
<p>No one said perfect SATs guarantees acceptance into an Ivy. That’s a straw man argument. Assuming no other factors are in play, if 50% of perfect-scoring applicants get into Harvard, then a perfect-scoring applicant has a 50% chance of getting in. However, other factors are considered, so chances for individual applicants cannot be 50%. By the same logical line, though, every applicant has either a 0% chance or 100% chance, if we assume this is a deterministic universe where every factor can presumably be weighted, resulting in the binary of either ‘Accepted’ or ‘Rejected’. This isn’t a statistically useful measure, so I try to refrain from that. Instead, in my post, I make the highly flawed assumption that the applicant is average compared to the pool of perfect scorers (since we don’t have all of their data) and award a 50% chance, which is more useful, albeit a highly flawed statistic. </p>
<p>To be better, my first post in this thread should have read, “Agreed. On average, with a 2400, you’ve already got a 50% chance at admission”. Cheers.</p>
<p>For the senior class of 2007, the 95th percentile for the SAT was a 2040. I’d argue that for non-hooked applicants, this is a weak number that may reduce one’s chances for acceptance.</p>
<p>Mentos, feel free to link whatever post I “indicated I was a ■■■■■.” With your post count and content, I strongly doubt you’re a Harvard freshman. But I suppose there are aggressive oddballs in every group. Also, do you know what a ■■■■■ is? Someone who provokes. Don’t type the word into your every post.</p>
<p>Alright, thanks Mentos. I also can’t say that the notion of 0% or 100% acceptance hasn’t frequently crossed my mind. Everyone can theoretically be guaranteed a 100-(1/infinity)% chance of acceptance into Harvard, though most end up rolling that 1 in infinity chance that they are not accepted. Obviously this doesn’t hold any real statistical validity, its just another interesting way to view the scant likelihood of admission to Harvard.</p>
The harry potter reference was suppose to be funny. Sorry, but you have absolutely no idea what happened in the dungeon of Hogwarts on the eve of Harry’s first Halloween Feast, do you?</p>
<p>^ There is not one classic that uses as much Greek Mythological allusions as Harry Potter does, nor is there one that uses them in such an expert fashion as Rowling does.
And there is not one classic that captures more audience than Harry Potter does.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize taking all of your ideas from a bunch of other famous books made you a classic writer. And use them in an expert fashion? She’s a decent writer, but she doesn’t possess any original style in her writing.</p>
<p>And don’t even argue about capturing audience. Considering our ignorant and indulgent population profuse with instant gratification, that’s not much of an accomplishment. Following that logic, the Twilight series is a classic as well.</p>
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