Difficulty of Ivy League Admissions

dufus3709
Fri, 24 Jun 2005 22:05:32 +0000

Sometimes the world is broken into people who believe that everything works and people who are cynical about how things work. I have read a dozen college guides at this point and every one of this with the exception of “A is for Admissions” that was published in 1997 refers to the current admissions situation at the extremely selective schools as being either a “crap shoot” or a “lottery”. Lets say that 18000 people apply to Harvard and they can accept about 1800. Some are going to be auto-admits and some are going to be auto-denies, but no matter how you look at it, you are going to have five completed qualified and indistinguishable applicants for every available slot. They may not actually roll dice, but the triffles that they will use to select one of the five are so insignificant that it must be regarded as a lottery. As to those people who must believe that the world is fair and everything works, nothing I or anyone else says will probably change your mind. I am not trying to convince anyone not to apply. I just think that you must understand the role that random chance plays in the process, and pick your targets, safeties and reaches accordingly. If you think that the system is non-random and then you get in, then you can feel all the better about yourself.