What in the world makes you think geographical diversity doesn’t matter to Harvard. Of course it does!
If they didn’t care about geographical diversity, the proportion of students from New York would probably be much higher. (How many extra SAT points do you think it takes to get admitted from NY? It must drive people in Buffalo and Rochester nuts.)
It is a bit of a lottery. And to be honest, just because you got into Harvard or Stanford really doesn’t mean you were the most qualified applicant. Sometimes it really depends on how appealing you look on paper, whether the admission officer feels a “connection” with you, whether you fill institutional needs, and if you “fit” the school’s culture.
There’s only so much that we, as applicants, can do. We can ensure that we get a high SAT, write good-quality essays, have amazing recs, extracurriculars that showcase our “passion and talents” etc etc. But in the end, we have no idea if we “fit” the school’s culture or institutional needs. That’s something we simply cannot control.
But in the end, I’ve seen too many of my outstanding peers waitlisted or rejected by all the Ivies, whilst someone (who is arguably on the same caliber) was accepted. I was one of the lucky few that gained admittance to a few of these schools, but I know so many others who were equally deserving of such an “ivy ticket”.
So really, I want the next generation of Ivy applicants to know that whether or not you get into a top school is definitely NOT a measure of your potential, intelligence, and competency. It really is a game of luck. Yes it’s unfair, but unfortunately that’s the way it is. Don’t stress out too much about it, put in all the effort you can, and enjoy the rest of your high school life! And I’m saying this to all of us non-urm, non-legacy, non-athletic recruit kids.
From the article, “we certainly do not believe in any type of zip-code quota system.”
That is not the point I was trying to make. I think it could go either way. All things equal a student from an underrepresented state would add geo diversity but they could also think that he would be less likely to matriculate and protect the yield.
What I was trying to say is that if the acceptance rate for Harvard at ABC high school is consistently six percent but one year it spikes to 12% that it is a good thing. Which to me says they view the candidate as a whole and geo diversity is a low bar to pass.
Is there some reason you singled out Buffalo and Rochester?
You can’t look at the matric class and assume there isn’t an effort at regional diversity. One of the links includes this: “Despite an abundance of outreach efforts, Harvard saw only modest gains this year in the number of applicants from underrepresented areas.” You know how many kids apply to an Ivy from, say, Stuy, versus how many of the proverbial kids from Wyoming?
Fuzzy, what you can do is ensure you really know what your target schools are about, what they look for, what they value. It’s on their web sites. Some of them need some thinking, maybe even translating, but it will give you a start too many kids don’t pursue. Then they can match themselves beyond stats, maybe make solid hs decisions about their activities, and ultimately form a solid application.
The fact of the matter is that the people making admissions decisions do not look upon results or even chances as “a lottery.” (“Gee, I wonder how many under-performing students we will feel compelled to consider this year, just because they sent us applications?”) That’s absurd. They don’t need to. They have talent in super-abundance in their email inboxes. The only unpredictable factor or “surprise” is the particular distribution of talent and achievement from one year to the next. For at least the last 10 years now – and probably indefinitely into the foreseeable future – the admissions committees are in control of a non-stop seller’s market.
The greater lottery *effect/i is felt on the student’s end, but even then I can tell you that most students, when they connect the word “lottery” with college admissions do not mean that they wonder how many percussionists, wrestlers, or future archaeologists (whatever their competition is) are among the application pool the year they apply. Rather, they wonder if they"ll “get lucky,” and the committee will “not notice” a C or a subpar score or a lukewarm LOR because maybe “this year” the committee members will be more persuaded by the essay and blow off the actual academic profile. They must think the committee is really stupid, blind, or desperate, or that the entire process is like a card game, with the mediocre students shuffled together with the geniuses, and the committee merely pulls cards out and (as with a lottery) “hopes for the best.” If you’re not Ivy League material, in the areas they have come to expect over the last 10 years, your “number” has zero chance of being drawn after the first overall evaluation. Lottery over.
Rarely is anything more deliberate these days than decisions made in Ivy League admissions committees. (Maybe State Department decisions.) Not random. Not lottery like. With full deliberation, knowledge, and elimination. If there’s going to be any “lottery effect,” it’s going to be at the far end (top) of the spectrum, hardly among the barely qualified.
It’s commonly discussed how extra difficult it is to get into Harvard via the elite boarding schools.
So how do you think elite school admissions would look if, in the next round, the schools wrote the names of all unhooked applicants with 3.8+ gpas and 2050+ SAT scores on a card, shuffled, and drew the names of the admits, lottery style? Would the new incoming class look radically different from previous classes, very different, or similar?
Why should they? They are not simply looking for 3.8+/2050+ kids. The rest of what one presents matters very much. Few seem able to grasp that. I guess they’re so used to the hierarchical high school systems.
But your question comes up all the time, among those who believe all hs top dawgs are similar and that’s all the elites want.
Btw, thousands of kids apply with 4.0 or higher. Or maybe one B in gym.
What I wrote above is not my prescription, just a question for those who insist it is not a lottery. My question is, would the outcome of a lottery like I asked about really be all that different from the results of the current method used by adcoms?
@Zekesima Yes, it would be a mess. High stats might impress you and others, but that alone does not make a top student.
It is interesting to see how many people want to continue to believe that the class admitted to any highly selective school was the only possible class of high achievers. While I agree it is obviously a well-thought out class, and a highly qualified pool of applicants, I cannot shake the feeling that there are many equally qualified kids who simply didn’t make the cut because of the limited number of seats available. THAT is what I mean by a lottery. NOT that some kid with a “C” on his report card will slip by the admissions committee.
Perhaps it depends on your viewpoint. If you are sitting on admissions committee agonizing over these decisions…the end result must feel crafted and deliberate. YOU the admissions officer knows all the extra criteria the school is looking to fill.
However, if you are a student or family of a student who thinks they meet every qualification for a selective school, the fact that the school needs an oboe player, or a laccross player, or someone from Wyoming is unknown to you. Therefore when that oboe player is admitted and you are not…it must feel random.
My point was always that the HIGHLY qualified student, who has apparently the perfect background for a highly selective school should approach admissions with an understanding that there is an element of “luck” in whether the school needs your specific talent (oboe/laccross) or does not need it. Understanding that there are elements out of the student’s control may help students understand that admission to those schools is, for many applicants, still based on random factors they cannot anticipate or control.
Yes. In ways that matter to campus life, to filling the orchestra, to having the kind of distribution of majors, schools, and programs which the institution needs this year, etc. IOW, a random draw might get an approximately even spread of majors, but maybe that’s not what the university needs this year. Maybe some majors have been underrepresented or are about to grow (they want those grown), etc.
Yes. That’s entirely the point. Only the administration – and what it passes on to the committee knows all those criteria. Outsiders do not.
And you would be surprised at how many students (literally, hundreds, I can promise you) think that their priorities will be the committee’s (or might be – that’s the “lottery” belief they have). So, even if the applicant doesn’t have a single C, he is simply a consistent worker; he is not anything extraordinary in any particular area of achievement. He thinks that “doesn’t matter,” because – since there are so many supposedly (fundamentally) qualified, those (bare) qualifications provide everyone from the qualified pool an equal (lottery) chance.
Naturally. I haven’t denied that. However, I will say that there is a very large population of students and parents who seem not to know what the term “high achiever” means, both in an “absolute” sense and in a relative sense. They have a very subjective understanding of high achievement which is not shared by the most selective colleges.
Well it is simply not the only possible class. A few of us said the like. But that still doesn’t translate into every one of, say, 43,000 applicant or even most applicants- or even, say, a third- is/are necessarily the sort these schools look for. Or that adcoms would jump with glee for, if a spin of the wheel landed on them.
Think about it.
Harvard has referred to having a finalist pool 3x the number of seats. All those last kids are super, one way or another. They’ve made it through 3-5 review points, the strength of the whole pool has been seen and considered, and these kids remain…
But there has to be the last culling, to get the class right. As some posters often say, they are not going to build a class full of wannabe engineers or all English majors. They may bump someone at your hs, to get the bassoonist they need from another hs down the hwy. No matter what Naviance told you about the past.
If a student thinks he “meets every qualification,” I hope he.she has truly scoured the college sites for that impression, not just listened to some other hs kids (who never applied.)
Yes, that’s one of the facts I’ve been trying to communicate. Also, Yale has said that they could fill the freshman class over 3x, but the way they phrased it was, “All of those applicants can do the work required at Yale.” LOL, I’m hoping their LOR’s were more enthusiastic than that.
So, again, there are shades of differences among
Excellent, reliable, capable, consistent student and contributor to the community.
That ^ and more.
Extraordinary capable & multi-talented.
However, line 1 or 2 may be sufficient any particular round to get you considered if you have a special talent or fill an institutional need when no student from Line 3 happens to.
Lots of students do not meet Line 1, but their parents, peers, etc. announce that they do. For example, a high-performer in grades and scores who has never done an ounce of community service does not meet Line 1. You would be surprised at how many families assume that Ivies will overlook a disinterest in the wider world.
" For example, a high-performer in grades and scores who has never done an ounce of community service does not meet Line 1. You would be surprised at how many families assume that Ivies will overlook a disinterest in the wider world. "
Actually, I am surprised how many people on this site make these authoritative-sounding statements that simply aren’t true.
There are many schools in this country – hundreds of them – that do not put a high priority – or any priority – on community service, but that has not been true of the Ivy League for some time.
So tell me, in 2015, which Ivy League University or College is terribly interested in a student who has done nothing for anyone but himself? Not a hooked student, an unhooked student competing with students like himself. Do share your wisdom. 
Well, if it were completely a lottery then there would unlikely be students who get admitted to all Ivies, plus a number of top 20ies. But, I agree with @CValle’s general position for the “average” super student who is unhooked but has excellent grades, test scores, recommendations, essays, and extracurriculars, it does seem rather random and it is healthier emotionally to enter the process with that knowledge. These are the kids that stand out big time in their communities and the average person who doesn’t know just how selective some of these schools are end up being shocked when they learn that the student wasn’t admitted to one of these top schools.
How can one pontificate about the randomness of the ivy selection when the universe and the selected population is not known? what sample size provides those ivy demographics?