Nearly 35,000 applications for the Class of '15.

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Hooks? Athlete? Legacy? I didn’t know Harvard would even consider anyone below the top 15% of their class seriously.</p>

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My largely ‘un-based un-biased’ guesstimate of the numbers – 1,500 all-rounders (that is non-hook non-URM types) out of 35,000 gives 4.3% acceptance (or mariculation?) rate. Top-stats (SAT, rank, etc.) are norm (say 80% of the admittees) and low-stat ‘subjective or personal quality, non-hook’ admittees are exceptions (say 20% of the admittees). Of course we do not know what fraction each group divides the total applicants pool and so the exact admission rate of each group is not known. However, if we assume that 50% of total applicants are the top-stat applicants, it will give them 1,200/17,500=6.9% acceptance rate and for the low-stat all-rounders a 1.7% acceptance rate. The less-than-top-stat applicants will have a much much lower chance of acceptance than 4.3% or 6%. So, if you have a near perfect SAT, top class rank, APs all 5’s, SAT2 with near 800s, etc. then your chance of admission is about 7%; and if you have a mediocre stat ( in the harvard standard) but well rounded ECs and passions etc, you have 1% chance of admission. see just how much lower the chances of admission can be for those “those-with-lower-stats-sometimes-do” applicants.

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<p>^You know, this is why I hate probability. The fact is, sometimes it’s too difficult to predict any sort of odds in the real world, because there are too many factors involved. Where do students with excellent SAT scores but low-ish GPA fall on your scale? Where do those with low SAT scores but high GPA fall? What about those with average scores on both but excellent essays? You can’t take the acceptance rate for, for example, those with 750-800 on CR (which was what like 20%?) and say that anyone whose CR falls in that range has that sort of chance. It’s illogical. Too many factors, too many variables. This isn’t math, this is a subjective process that’s impossible to predict. Here’s how to view admissions:
With increasing scores comes increasing chances, and vice versa. GPA and rank are more important than SAT scores. Anything else is impossible to predict. If you’re satisfied with your essays and think they fit the school and really show who you are, and have adequate stats, your acceptance rate is going to be somewhere near 1 in 5/6 or something (after removing unqualified applicants from the pool). And that’s it. That’s all you’ll ever be able to guess.</p>

<p>this increase in consistent with all schools. Penn too has received 31000 applicants.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1069780-updated-number-30-956-applications-penn-class-2015-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1069780-updated-number-30-956-applications-penn-class-2015-a.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I guess the spending power of most families is going high and the confidence level of average applicants is also sky rocketing. Those are the only reasons possible!!</p>

<p>All I can say is embrace competition guys!! The road ahead is plagued with much much more of it :)</p>

<p>I’m late coming into this discussion, but with regard to those complaining about schools marketing to students that don’t have a great chance of admittance you need to recognize that the marketing lists are generated from very limited information coming from the College Board. Basically all that the school is going by is some screening of test scores and the student’s zip code from which they infer the student’s socioeconomic situation. They do not have your GPA or class rank, etc. until you send in your application. So if Harvard wants to find diamonds in the rough, then there will naturally be many <2300 SAT students that won’t measure up who will get their marketing materials. I honestly do not think it is a ploy to lower their admissions rate for USNWR, but I take Dean Fitzsimmons at his word on what their objectives are.</p>

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<p>Counting the Class2014 Acceptees for where the class rank is posted/known, and counting the non-valedictorian acceptees only if they are non-hook types (no URM, no Athlete, etc.): out of the first 11 acceptees posted in CC (with class rank): 7 Valedictorians and 4 nones (ranks 2, 8, 12, 10, respectively). ==> So, I exagerated a bit when I said 80-20. Maybe the split is 70-30 between Class Rank#1 and the rest.</p>

<p>@Jimmy, the rank is probably more important than SATs, as long as the SAT score is high enough (2150+ :wink: and other test scores also. You can clearly separate the acceptees into groups based on their class rank though.</p>

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Generalizing based on a sample of 11, on CC no less? CC people tend to be overachievers (I’m not stereotyping here but that’s the norm.) What we should see is the percentage acceptance for the valedictorians in the results thread, and % acceptance for non valedictorians/top 1-2% of class. Also, in a similar college (MIT, really selective), valedictorian admit rate was 25% only (though that made half the incoming class valedictorians.)</p>

<p>Rank is always more important than SAT. That doesn’t mean the SAT can’t break the application, though. A 2150 valedictorian is more likely to be admitted than a 2400 top 10%-er (unfortunately for me.)</p>

<p>^I am not generalizing, I am just giving you an example using a small sample data. Don’t have time, but you can go through the entire list of this CC data. If CC can put such data (% of Vals, % of top 1-2%, etc of those accepted) will be nice. </p>

<p>^How many Vals (high schools) are there, roughly, in USA ? That will set approximate size of applicants who are Vals. Then the rest is non-vals. U can use this to set approximate accepted CCers who are vals and non-vals.</p>

<p>My SAT is about 200 points, if not more, higher than the rest of the top 10 at my school. :P</p>

<p>I dropped a couple B’s and a C due to a combination of family issues, laziness, a research project, and adjusting to a heavier courseload Junior year. Only a couple other people have a courseload rigorous as mine (I finished the math and science curricula at my school, that counts for something I hope) and similar things (maybe not as severe) happened to them as well.</p>

<p>@Hopingdad: remember, valedictorian can mean all sorts of stuff these days. Some schools give that title to anyone with a 4,0, the top 10%, or anything like that. A private school in my area has like 4 to 7 valedictorians a year.</p>

<p>Sorry, but I don’t understand why ranking is more important than SAT. After all, the SATs are standardized testing, while marks given in school are highly subjective depending on the teachers and the courses a student chooses to take.</p>

<p>SATs are way too easy to be used for everyone. In an idealized situation, it should test what the student has learned in school and there should be only a few people in the entire applicant pool with perfect/near-perfect scores. APs would be a better indicator if conducted like A-Levels or IBs.</p>

<p>hopingdad/Jimmy797: This is not a contradiction to what any of us are saying.
A: I was responding to the misinformation being given out by iceui2.</p>

<p>adchang: Going by USNW . . .
A: Ratings in USNW are based upon AP/IB scores. A better barometer is to look at overall college acceptances by high schools. See: [url=&lt;a href=“http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-COLLEGE0711-sort.html]WSJ.com[/url”&gt;WSJ.com]WSJ.com[/url</a>]</p>

<p>theEnigmaaa: I don’t understand why ranking is more important than SAT.
A: Because the SAT is a one-day test, whereas rank is a 3 to 3.5 year window.</p>

<p>Wow, that’s a lot of people. Like I’ve said, by 2050, the admission rate will be 1%. </p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>@gibby
That’s a really interesting list! Why Pomona, though? Pretty random.</p>

<p>@hopingdad I may have been as high as top 15%…I really don’t know. My recommendation probably helped a lot. My college counselor said that she wrote me one of the best of the year, based on holistic college-worthiness, if not grades. I’m a humanities person who went to a science-specialty public high school routinely ranked much higher than Stuyvesant on USNWR/just a few lower on gibby’s list. I have a national championship in my field of the humanities. I did try very hard at science, taking the most challenging courses, which is where the Bs came from.</p>

<p>And yes, I am a legacy. I get testy about it because several people from my high school heard that and then told me (in person) that I was clearly admitted on that basis alone. I still would like to hope that winning a national championship was more important to my admission than who my parents were… But I do sometimes doubt myself, too.</p>

<p>@enigmaa
I have no idea if this is how it actually works, but it’s how I make sense of it in my head. I assume that a high SAT puts you into the competitive-for-admission zone, in which class rank and GPA (as gibby said, telling you more about a person over time than the hours-long SAT) are the big differentiators of qualified candidates. So they say that GPA/class rank are more important, because they’re the criteria that end up being more important for admission, if not for competitiveness-for-admission.</p>

<p>@lullina
Do you want to get rid of the SAT entirely?
Also, if only 1% of test-takers rank in the 99th percentile on each section of the SAT (by definition), how much more selective do you want to make APs? I agree that their current system is not differentiated enough, but what level of differentiation are you aiming for? Do you want there to be a #1-scoring exam in each subject?</p>

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<p>Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say you were admitted on that basis alone.
From Harvard’s website:

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<p>You definitely got to the final-ish rounds of admission, metaphorically speaking. You may have gained admission over someone with slightly better stats because you were a legacy, perhaps, but Harvard wouldn’t have admitted you if you weren’t worthy. I’m hoping the same will happen with me (sort of top 10-15%rank with excellence in both humanities and sciences, but not in social sciences which is where I tank) - except I’m not a legacy. But hoping that well-roundedness will serve me well :)</p>

<p>To those inquiring about the SAT and its lack of importance:
Trust me, the SAT is less important. I really really want to believe otherwise, because my SAT score greatly overshadows my rank (top 0.5% or so vs top 10%), but it just isn’t as important. While it does show great competence in English if you ace it, it shows close to nothing about your math skills (perhaps your logic skills a bit), and absolutely nil about your background in everything else. While great SAT scores will without a doubt boost your application, a great rank is a lot better (note I say rank because rank takes context into account, while GPA doesn’t, and admissions officers always consider context, because it’s extremely important.)</p>

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when i posted above, i had no idea about how many high schools in the USA. But as it turns out, it is close to 50% of this year’s number of harvard applicants.

<a href=“http://www.betterhighschools.org/pubs/documents/usfactsheetandreferences_final_080406.pdf[/url]”>http://www.betterhighschools.org/pubs/documents/usfactsheetandreferences_final_080406.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Limiting the ‘top-stat’ to rank#1, the top class-ranked applicants can be assumed to be less than 50% (altho it could be close, if your ranked #1 in your school, which college will you first think about applying?).</p>

<p>@gibby: but far as AP and IB scores go, aren’t they a generally good standard of comparison far as rigor goes among schools? Iif a lot of students are doing well on a multitude of AP/ IB exams at a school, it would show the school is “good”. Does Stuveysant (I probably butchered that spelling) teach kids to be insanely good writers? O_O</p>

<p>Might be a bit odd to mention, but I think there’s a bit of prejudice against Louisiana for having the second worst public education system in the US, haha.</p>

<p>It’s interesting how that article doesn’t include Stanford and Yale in their top colleges-- might as well have made it a round 10.</p>

<p>^^ AP/IB scores are indeed a good standard, but according to USNWR, thier ratings are based upon the key principle that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are college bound. USNWR uses a “college readiness index” based on the school’s AP or IB participation rate (the number of 12th-grade students who took at least one AP or IB test before or during their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders) and how well the students did on those tests. See: [Methodology:</a> America’s Best High Schools - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://education.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/education/high-schools/articles/2009/12/09/methodology-americas-best-high-schools]Methodology:”>http://education.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/education/high-schools/articles/2009/12/09/methodology-americas-best-high-schools)</p>

<p>So…for college bound students, you need to find a measure that quantifies those students that matriculate to college. The WSJ article was the only report I was able to find; there may be more though. It is odd that the WSJ did not include Stanford and Yale in their top colleges. Not sure why, or why they used Pomona, as well.</p>

<p>@Gibby: but at such excellent institutions, most students ARE college-bound. Don’t both of the schools we’re discussing boast that 99%+ of students go on to college? I know that my school has been happy that they were 100% for quite a few years, though one guy last year didn’t.</p>

<p>Our school had a couple Stanford and Yale admits actually-- something like 2/2?</p>

<p>addchang: I’m sure your school is an excellent institution, where most students are college bound. However, the schools mentioned in the WSJ article are selective – you need to test into them to be admitted, so basically those schools are stacked with “type-A-overachievers,” so the odds of those schools having more Ivy League acceptances will be greater than most other excellent institutions. For example: see: <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School&lt;/a&gt; – “Each year, about 26,000 of New York City’s eighth-graders sit for the test [to get into Stuyvesant].”</p>