If I apply to 10 undergraduate schools what're the odds I get into AT LEAST ONE?

Chance Me / Match Me
41

The OP says that she also is applying to “in-state safeties”. She is a Washington state resident so she has some good options among in-state publics. I’m not familiar with current UW admission standards, but with a 35 ACT and 10 AP’s my guess is that she’s highly likely to be admitted, if she plans to apply. Since she used the plural, I’m guessing that she’ll apply to UW and also one or more of the Washington state u’s. As she likes Gallatin, perhaps she’d also like Evergreen … so she’ll have options.

It is a legitimate application strategy to simply apply to safeties (or near-safeties) and reaches, as long as the student is happy to attend the safeties.

While it is true that she will be competing against students with stronger GPA’s for admission, but there is a very clear rising trend – so I don’t think that she is entirely out of the running at any college.

We can’t do odds for this student or any other because none of us are privy to her LOR’s & essays. And at very selective colleges, those are often the factors that differentiate the well-qualified applicants who get accepted vs. the well-qualified applicants who get waitlisted or rejected.

42

I’m not sure why people have introduced multiplication. This would result in the odds of acceptance at all ten schools (one in ten billion under a 10/10% scenario). To arrive at a figure that would represent the chances of getting into at least one school (76% under the same simplified assumptions), the relevant math is essentially additive.

43

@calmom I don’t disagree with your basics, that she has safeties. But the question was will one of 10 tippy tops admit her. And like threads about ED, some forget this isn’t just better chances for applying to more or earlier.

A rising trend is good, but not a tip, in itself. (And 1st semester soph year was a 3.0.) Her ECs seem to include foreign focus only, nothing with her school peers or local community is shown, and both high school and local engagement are important. We don’t know what classes got less than A, not which APs less than 5, or the ACT subscores. It’s not just a random probability calculation.

And the essay issues. I think the tippy tops are an extreme reach, as of now. Any of them. She has a chance to make an excellent presetation in her apps, but not sure she knows how, at this point.

Add to that, with all the foreign involvement, I wonder if “US student” means US citizen. And Wash state puts forth a large number of highly qualified applicants.

44

“I’m not sure why people have introduced multiplication. This would result in the odds of acceptance at all ten schools (one in ten billion under a 10/10% scenario). To arrive at a figure that would represent the chances of getting into at least one school (76% under the same simplified assumptions), the relevant math is essentially additive.”

@merc81 No, the probability of getting into at least one if the probability of getting into each is x%, and the n variables are independent is y = 1 - (1-x)^n. In other words multiplying the probability of not getting into each school. If x=10% and n=10 then the result y is 65%. In the limit as x tends to zero then y tends to n * x which I guess is where your “essentially additive” comes from.

But the point is that these variables are not independent so you can’t multiply them.

45

And to return to OPs main point, he/she would have a much better chance at a school that doesn’t focus on GPA. For example, UK schools only consider AP scores and SAT/ACT and are a good choice for a full pay student with a low GPA.

46

No. What a foolish question.

47

@Twoin18 Please, before you criticize what I say, please read it.

Let me put this in another way

I think that we agree that a person who buys tickets to many lotteries has a probability of winning at least one prize that is equal to the product of the probabilities of winning each. The more tickets they buy for each lottery, the higher the chance that they will win that lottery, but that does not change the way you calculate the probability of winning at least one prize in any lottery.

Now assume that a person is required to buy the same number of tickets for all lotteries. So if you buy 10 Superbowl tickets, you need to buy 10 Big Game tickets, etc. You have now added a correlation between the chances that an individual will win one lottery with the probability that they will win another lottery. However, that still does not affect the way you calculate the probability of winning at least one prize. You calculate the probability of winning each lottery, based on the number of tickets you bought from that lottery, and then calculate the probability of winning at least one prize using the product of all the probabilities which are specific to the specific number of tickets that person bought.

Now let’s go to the colleges. Since each college looks at the profile of a student independently of other colleges, but acceptance probability to each college is dependent on the shared profile of the student.

What we are looking at for each student is the specific probability of acceptance of a student with a particular profile to a specific college. This IS independent of the probability that a student of this profile will be accepted in another college. Of of the 100 unhooked students with 4.0 GPAs, SATs of 1600, and three international awards, and two leadership positions who are applying to Harvard, 30 will be accepted this year, giving each a 30% chance of being accepted, while, of these same 100 kids, Yale will accept 42, giving them a 42% chance. So the probability that they will be accepted to at least of of those two is 40.6%. So long as we are looking at students who share the same values for all the factors which are considered in similar fashion by both Harvard and Yale, we are controlling for the factors which create the correlation between chances of acceptance to Harvard and Yale. Once we have removed the effect of profile, the chances of acceptance are now independent.

What you cannot do is calculate the probability of an applicant being accepted to a college by using the average acceptance rate of the college, and you cannot calculate the probability of being accepted to at least one college by using 1 - product of the average probability of rejections in each college.

“multiply the chances that an applicant has to be accepted at each college, given their stats and profile. That will provide the probability that they will be accepted to at least one college”. Actually, I had that backwards. You need to multiply the chances of them being rejected and then do = 1 - the product.

PS. Lottery tickets are actually nor really independent. It is sampling without replacement, so with every lottery ticket bought, the probability of getting a winning a prize with the next ticket increases. Not by a lot, but by more than 0.

48

“What we are looking at for each student is the specific probability of acceptance of a student with a particular profile to a specific college…Of the 100 unhooked students with 4.0 GPAs, SATs of 1600, and three international awards, and two leadership positions who are applying to Harvard, 30 will be accepted this year, giving each a 30% chance of being accepted”

@MWolf That’s not the right way to think about college admissions. Harvard doesn’t put all those people with a particular set of qualifications in a hat and draw randomly. What you have is a sampling problem much more like the question of who will win either Michigan or Pennsylvania in the presidential election. You win or you don’t, and Michigan voters are looking for specific things, Pennsylvania voters some of the same things but maybe other things too or they may weight them differently. The probability of winning one state depends on how well you can estimate what the admissions officers (or voters) are looking for. So if you have a 1600 SAT then historical evidence may suggest 30% of those people have been admitted by Harvard in past years, but that’s really just saying you believe the yes/no decision is closer than average (“X is more likely to win in Michigan because many voters like policy Y”). Though unfortunately we can’t conduct an opinion poll with admissions committee members to improve our estimates.

And then as Nate Silver pointed out, polling uncertainties (voter intentions) in different states are correlated so you can’t treat the probabilities as independent and multiply the probabilities for each college or state (“if you win in Michigan you are more likely to win in Pennsylvania”). Likewise the minds of admissions officers.

In summary the “probability” of admission is attempting to measure how well you know the mind of an admissions officer/committee (or that of the voters), rather than suggesting that colleges (or voters) pick randomly amongst equally qualified candidates. If you knew their minds perfectly then the probability would be 1 or 0 for each college (or state). Much like the question of whether Schroedinger’s cat is alive or dead.

“Lottery tickets are actually nor really independent. It is sampling without replacement, so with every lottery ticket bought, the probability of getting a winning a prize with the next ticket increases. Not by a lot, but by more than 0”

That’s the situation for Powerball (where you can buy all of the different numbers in theory, as some people have tried to do after multiple rollovers, though the tickets are still independent if you pick numbers randomly). But you may end up sharing the proceeds even if you buy all possible combinations, which is why you have to wait for rollovers (where prior losers have contributed to the pot).

However it’s not the case for a raffle of Super Bowl tickets, where each additional ticket sold reduces the probability of the previous ticket winning and it’s easy to see that 2/(n+1)-1/n < 1/n so the second ticket has a lower expected incremental probability of winning than the first one you buy.

49

I love MWolf’s comment (#32). Explains the issue clearly and knowledgeably.
OP: As others have said, I suggest that you concentrate on targets and safety schools. Even Olympic athletes and children of billionaires need to show that they can do the work at an Ivy or Stanford, and a 3.3 GPA is unlikely to convince those types of schools that you are qualified academically.
I think that NYU (which you mentioned) could be a good fit for you. You could also look at George Washington, Bryn Mawr, and Smith. It depends on the type of school and community that you’re looking for.
There are plenty of excellent schools in the NW. I suggest looking at UW, though Foster (business school) is more difficult to get into than Arts & Sciences, where you could choose economics. Private schools to consider are Seattle U (Jesuit, but not much focus on religion and an emphasis on service), Whitman, Reed, and Lewis & Clark. Public safeties include WSU, UW Tacoma, UW Bothell, and Western Washington. I agree with another poster who suggested Evergreen, given OP’s interest in Gallatin. If you want to go to California, consider Santa Clara, Mills, Pitzer, and possibly Scripps (though probably a reach).
You have a lot going for you, and despite the bumps early in your high school career, you can get into an excellent college and succeed.

50

This isn;t about a 4.0/1600 kid who understands what adcoms are looking for and produces it in the ECs and writing sections, makes no slips, and impresses during an interview.

Even perfect kids like that are are subject to geo diversity and balance in majors and by gender. Etc. Those wild cards against them.

Just looking at Princeton, 2.6% of kids with a gpa below 3.5 were admitted. We all know a chunk of those will be athletes. At Stanford, 1% of applicants below 3.7 got in, Again with the athletes.

If you could understand what each of OP’s targets (in this thread) is looking for, you’d know the chances are miniscule.

Nothing says that if 9 reject her (and I’m only looking at gpa figures, not the rest of holistic,) that the 10th has some miraculous feat of probablity running in her favor.

I do wish folks would quit relying on probability, some exercise of your math skills. It takes this thread off track and isn’t fair to OP.

And I have no idea what you think the magic redeeming qualities are, here, some work abroad and some big pieces apparently missing.

51

The OP didn’t ask about applying only to Ivies. She asked about schools with admission rates in the 5 to 20 % range. So while I agree it’s a useless question, there are plenty of schools in the 15-20% admit range which might be more focused on her ACT score or less concerned about the weaker 9th grade GPA.
Those schools would still be reaches, but definitely not impossible.

52

GPA needs to be put in context. I did see reference to rising trend and concrete reasons for low GPA in 9th grade, but no reference to where she falls in relation to the rest of her class. Is she in the top 10% or at least top 20%? That would help. Also, unclear how competitive her high school is & whether they routinely have students applying to tippy-top schools. Naviance data might help, too.

53

You have a great chance. Your ec’s tell a story, and if you have some reason for a lower GPA, at least ONE of those schools if not more are going to see you as someone who is passionate and adds diversity to their campus… and your ACT score shows you can handle work.

54

THANK YOU FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT!!

55

Seems like as good a place as any to close.