<p>The “crap shoot” aspect at the extremely selective schools doesn’t mean that it is random who gets in so long as you apply. It means that for every person accepted, there are four or five practically identical applicants who are denied or waitlisted. This is the random quality. The adcoms admit to this themselves all the time and lament that they have to do it that way because they only have so many open slots. The problem is that so many students pick their schools according to the brandname.</p>
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<p>haha, no. Three are going to Harvard…and ironically, none of the three specific students you described are going. One of the Harvard kids was captain of It’s Academic, another was editor of the school newspaper, and another had a four-generation legacy. 14 are going to Princeton. Please tell me you’re not a senior, LOL. </p>
<p>sarasote - No, I’m saying that when you compare some of the admits/rejections within my school, things sometimes don’t make sense. People with so-so GPAs, SATs, and ECs get in while people with much stronger stats (and ECs for that matter) are rejected. Obviously no one knows what the national pool was like, but comparing in-school competition, quite a few of the decisions are head-scratchers. </p>
<p>Plus, I have talked to admissions counselors. One of my father’s colleagues used to be on the committee for an Ivy. She said luck is a factor. You just need the right person to be the one to first read your file. If they like an applicant, for whatever reason, they’ll fight for them. There’s a good chance that if their file had started off in another person’s hands, their admission status would be different. Similar sentiments have been expressed by other adcom officers (one of my father’s students who used to be one for another “elite,” and an officer for his university). </p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s a crapshoot. Just that for the majority of applicants, luck does play at least a small role. If you want to think luck is no factor, then fine. I’ll still take the word of those three people with, you know, actual first-hand experience, over your’s.</p>
<p>BTW, phrasing your response as a criticism of me was not neccessary at all. I was not talking about not understanding my own rejection, though I did call, and had a long conversation with the admissions rep which basically amounted to “I fought for you, I really did. The committee agonized over your case. There was nothing wrong with your app. There just wasn’t enough room.” So no, I am not saying these things out of bitterness or not understanding my own rejection. Luck was against me in that case, but it worked for me in another.</p>