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<p>No one is assured of admission, but an MIT applicant with a 2400 SAT would be justified in thinking that his chance of admission is close to 20% (compared to 9% for all applicants) based on [Admissions</a> Statistics | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats]Admissions”>Admissions statistics | MIT Admissions) .</p>
<p>I think applying to more schools does help your chances because not all schools with a 30% admit rate or less have the same admission criteria. I know it helped one of my kids who applied to 18 schools and the pattern of which schools accepted him did not follow USNWR rankings. There were several jaw dropping decisions, both acceptances and rejections. At a certain point in the admissions process, adcoms are as concerned with ‘filling out’ the collective portrait of the entering class as they are with evaluating the individual comparative strengths of a unique student. So then, what is ‘fairness’? Adcoms have, in my view, a greater duty to the health and welfare of the overall college community than to your individual son or daughter. And once your loved one is enrolled, you probably wouldn’t want it any other way.</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6410LVW using CC</p>
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<p>I certainly would not have counseled my kids (if they had 2400’s and if they were interested in MIT, neither of which were true) to think that they were anything other than the 9%. Moreover, even 20%? 20% is hardly overwhelming odds; it’s still a lottery from the viewpoint of the applicant. I don’t know why anyone would look at any school at this level / caliber and think of it as anything other than a crapshoot. No matter what. Certainly my kids looked at their top choices that way, so they were pleasantly delighted when they got in, but they had NO expectations that they a) would or b) “should.” Then again, they built lists from amongst the top 40 or so schools and reached for the top ones in ED, rather than the arrogance of believing they were owed top 20 spots and needn’t look any lower. It takes no skill to come up with a list of HYPSM+Duke+Chicago and so forth. It takes a lot of skill and humility to say- hmmm, what is the environment I prefer, and where is a good range of schools that I should apply to.</p>
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<p>The odds of admission certainly increase with additional applications. If these were truly independent decisions, the odds would increase enough to make it worthwhile (a 65% chance of at least one admission for 10 independent 10% chances, and an 88% chance for 20 schools). However, these schools are looking for many of the same characteristics, so the decisions aren’t really independent, and the extra apps don’t help as much as one might hope. But they do help to some extent, and these kids will continue to apply to the entire Ivy league and the top 20.</p>
<p>Truly smart people try to zag whether other people zig.</p>
<p>Exactly. ^^^</p>
<p>But a lot of reasonably smart people just brute force the whole thing. :)</p>
<p>The problem with the statistical approach is that few kids, even the very top ones, have a 1 in 10 chance or whatever that statistic is for a school. There are those who are going to be accepted way before you because they are on some list that you are not on. There are the athletes, the development catches, the legacies, the celebrities, the children of employees, and then that category of kids that are “others” that have some connection that isn’t going to give them a hook, but all things equal, why not accept the cousin of the financial aid director, since that director, oh so casually, let you know that she is applying, and though there is no pressure the secretary of the school president has a son of a classmate that she personally escorted over to admissions–didn’t say a word, but … Those kids often are very much in the consideration group to be accepted, but if your going to accept A vs B, and A is in that "others’category, all things equal and they are, what the heck do you think is going to happen? </p>
<p>On top of that, the school wants diversity, some more than others, and that means first generation kids, immigrant kids, URMs, unusual backgrounds, and kids who are just plain poor. Yes, there have been posts about those kids from poor families not applying in the numbers they could be, but take a look at, say Stanford’s numbers as to kids who are receiving PELL. Some of these schools have 20% of their kids getting PELL which means they have to be coming from low income families… Every study I have seen has a direct correlation between income and academic success, so there are to me an awful lot of low income kids at the very top schools. </p>
<p>So your kid is not Pell eligible, not any special minority or group, not URM, not an athlete, not any of the above. His chance is not the overall chance that you calculate. He might not even have a chance at all. If there are too many of such kids and no real desire for them… well, he’s not going to get in. I don’t know single, just very high stat kids from my kids school getting into HPY. There is always a very identifiable hook. I agree not always,but in my experience, it’s been there, not obvious to everyone, but if you know the kid and the situation, it’s there as big as day. </p>
<p>There are those rare gems of kids with true intellectual curiousity who have done work and able to convey this work and interest to the top schools who do get accepted, but that group is much smaller than one would think. There are too many kids who have the academics/test scores AND have a specialty hook, so by the time one gets down to the spaces left for those kids without any such hook, it’s slim pickings.</p>
<p>Response From A Mere Mortal Mother
Re: To (All) the Colleges That Rejected Me by Suzy Lee Weiss</p>
<p>Where do I begin? The saving grace of your article is the fact that you already have the answer to the question of what could have been done differently. You state that your parents gave up on parenting you. Hammer hits nail.</p>
<p>I am a single mother with an income of less than $20,000/year. To illustrate my parenting model let me share a few clips from my journals, though I am neither a tiger mom nor an animal mom of any kind.</p>
<p>During May I had: a parent chaperone meeting for an overnight school trip, PTA picnic with chorus performance, dance class, dance performance, weekly Girl Scout meetings, skate night, 5th Grade Summit, voice performance, overnight school trip, weekend Girl Scout camp trip, school meeting for new charter school, graduation, and graduation party. My calendar lends credence to the ones who know me somewhat and those who know me well, to the ones I work with, and the ones who view me in passing and say that Im obsessed with my child. Once you know me you know that I only do a job if Im going to give it 110%. Why would I view raising my daughter as less of a commitment?</p>
<p>Today is the last day of camp. July, our usual travel time, looms ahead void of affordable possibilities. My eleven-year-old daughter has enjoyed a full month of assorted experiences. I am amazed and grateful that it was able to happen at all. For the first two weeks of summer she went to sewing camp. She spent week three away at Girl Scout camp and chose drama and horseback riding as her focus. This week was art camp with a concentration in pottery and dance. The total cost: $1,030. I havent worked for months but I know how to make things happen. I applied for scholarships as early as January and meticulously budgeted my meager unemployment.</p>
<p>Got diversity? Yup! But its not a souvenir from an overseas excursion. IT IS MY LIFE. In turn I have endowed it to someone of the next generation so it is my responsibility to see that, with it, I equip her with the tools to buff it to a shine.</p>
<p>My daughter is halfway through high school now. It was not an Ivy League quest that led me down the path of providing her life experiences through travel and extracurriculars. I was compelled by my own mother, a mother of four like your own, who found pride and satisfaction in making the best life for her children, though some would deem that life beneath their standards. And therein lays another issue. It seems that as more people have access to information and opportunity they are perceived as educational robber barons, pilfering endowments from the entitled. Believe me, A LOT was paid to learn those secrets.</p>
<p>Children are victims of their parents. They come to us defenseless and unwritten. It is up to us to start their story then hand them the pen like a baton and cheer them on from the sidelines. Life is unfair. Yet while some kids are whining other kids are winning kids of all creed and color. My child has achieved a lot because she worked hard and I sacrificed hard. That is life.</p>
<p>Bringing a child into the world is a choice in America. We must accept the responsibility of both the choices we make and the circumstances weve been blessed and cursed with. We must make the most of the hand weve been dealt. We must teach our children to do the same. Why werent you adopted by Amy Chua? Because you had a mother and a father living in the same home as you, albeit with their eyes wide shut, sleeping while you whatevered the night away.</p>
<p>You will be just fine. Know that at your age it is not too late for many things. To be honest, you could start pursuing what you perceive you lack and re-apply to your dream school a year from now. Maybe by then you will realize that contemplating your future while kneading dough at the local pizza shop or being the slowest person on the cross-country team are great essay prompts. Yet I suspect you have already found an intellectual haven that will harbor you on the next part of your life journey. </p>
<p>Lastly, dont think your cutesy Kinto comments direct reference wasnt caught since there are only five (and a half) vowels in our language. </p>
<p>So glad I could share my secrets. Put my check in the mail.</p>
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<p>The acceptance rate only describes an individual’s admission rate if (a) all applicants have an equal chance of admission, or (b) the admissions process is so opaque that no applicant would know whether their application would be considered stronger or weaker in the pool of applicants.</p>
<p>lookingforward,
I think I remember you saying that you are an essay reader. Are you also an admissions employee? Because you write with such self-assurance about exactly how admissions works and what sort of students will be admitted or not admitted.</p>
<p>I agree with Bovertine about mokusatsu :)</p>
<p>onetruething,
I like your post, I agree that the majority of kids cannot accomplish all that much completely on their own without their parents help and support, transportation and money for ECs. Two of my children were very strong in figuring out what interested them and what they wanted to pursue, and they worked extremely hard, but there is no way they could have achieved their (national/international) standing without us parents. My third was just not interested in many things, despite endless “helping” from us parents. He eventually found one thing he has excelled at quite strongly, but he does not have the same breadth and depth of interests as his siblings. Parents need to do a lot, but at the same time, they can only do so much to develop their kids into something that translates into exceptional fodder for college admissions purposes. (Not that admissions is the reason to do any of this stuff).</p>
<p>bovertine.
non taken. LOL. It is funny now I see it.</p>
<p>You can tell I’m not a native speaker. This should be a hook for my kids. :)</p>
<p>The problem with discussing statistical probabilities that, say, one of the Ivies will take kid X, is that it’s not a blind pool. They are rating your app package. Not randomly picking 2000, but deciding first, whether what you present (quantitative and qualitative) is what they like. </p>
<p>Bay, what I repeatedly say is: lots of factors.come into play; that imo geo diversity has the potential to be deadly. I am one of a team of extra hands who read and rate whole app packages. Not a decision maker. But i can be a strong advocate. And i have access to adcom comments. One thing I can tell is that not all apps from top performers do kids justice, advance them. It’s sometimes the “same old” that PG mentions. But equally often that they present as reactive rather than empowered.</p>
<p>Pizza- of course its provincial and ridiculous. And of course it proves that your typical American can’t do math (take every HS in America. Each one has a Val. That’s already all the seats at Stanford, HYP, Cornell Duke etc. combined.) So being Val- sorry snowflake, not so special out there in the real world.</p>
<p>But it is a hard message to tell people (on your block, in your family, in your office) “Hey, we think Jimmy is so darn special and adorable and brilliant and any college would be lucky to have him. But if your plan is for him to get into Lottery school X on the basis of high test scores and being Val- let’s talk about some other fantastic schools too that he’d be interested in”.</p>
<p>But as I have observed with paid college counselors- nobody is paying 12,000 bucks or 5K or whatever it costs to have their kid end up at Adelphi or Hofstra or U New Haven, if they claim they only want an optimal fit for their child and EVEN IF those colleges happen to be terrific choices for their kid. No- they want a professional- someone with connections- to tell them that magically a different set of choices will appear once they’ve written the check.</p>
<p>And similarly- a parent with an unrealistic sense of how magical their kid is when looking across the entire landscape of HS kids, is going to have a bit of a journey to learn about Middlebury and Bates, or Wesleyan and Rice, when the last 18 years have been focused on Princeton and Stanford.</p>
<p>But the inability to run the numbers? We are an innumerate people!</p>
<p>“But it is a hard message to tell people (on your block, in your family, in your office) “Hey, we think Jimmy is so darn special and adorable and brilliant and any college would be lucky to have him. But if your plan is for him to get into Lottery school X on the basis of high test scores and being Val- let’s talk about some other fantastic schools too that he’d be interested in”.”</p>
<p>Whoa. Back the train up. Why is it “your” plan (as in your neighbors, your extended family, your coworkers)? Why are they involved in the least unless you explicitly seek their opinions? Why are you “running” schools by them?</p>
<p>MIT, [url=<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University]Brown,[/url</a>] and other schools presumably publish admission statistics conditional on test scores and class rank so that applicants can estimate their admissions chances using more information than the overall admissions rate. Why else would they publish such tables?</p>
<p>Beliavsky, can you look at the world through any other lens than a statistical one?</p>
<p>Even if my kids were 2400s applying to MIT, I would not *counsel them to think as if * their chances were 20%. Because the type II error of being too cocky and not getting in is a worse error than the type I error of not thinking you’ll get in at all and being pleasantly surprised. Because there is a human heart with hopes and dreams involved. Don’t you get that?</p>
<p>They put them out. It’s clear from CC kids (and adults) that many don’t interpret them, much less dig into what top schools value, in the first place. They may think matching the top quartile is the trick. Yes… and then, no. Look at the number of vals not in at Brown. Princeton used to present similar figures.</p>
<p>For MIT, if your SAT is above 2300, good GPA, a USAMO qualifier and a nice person, I do believe that you should set your hope for admission at more than 50%.</p>
<p>What’s interesting is that someone who has a low regard for probabilities of admission success still pays college counselors to increase such probability for their kids (e.g., pizzagirl) :)</p>
<p>Geography is more important than people realize – NOT as an initial selector or de-selector, but rather as a factor to assess local competition.</p>
<p>Very few ambitious students and their ultra-ambitious parents understand this. Or, they “understand” it intellectually, but have not processed it internally, emotionally, intuitively. It’s all abstract to them. Their child is #1 at excellent public or private high school, is not just a stat-freak (in fact, usually not, usually more focused on intellect than “badges”), is well read, writes penetrating essays or simply unusual ones, and is mature for a 17-year-old – emotionally, socially, intellectually mature. If H,Y, and P, were to choose only from that region or that State, the family (i.m.o.) would be reasonable to assume that, given Ivy desirability, the student would have a decent shot for one of, say, 6 Ivies.</p>
<p>And family will even say, “Yes, we understand that there are lots of excellent applicants about there.” But they don’t really understand. They have NOT run the numbers. When Yale is admitting only 12 students SCEA out of 9 metropolitan counties, and is admitting about an equal number in the RD round, then any student from a densely populated region, filled with equally ambitious and similarly excellent students, has decreased chances versus the same level of student from Montana.</p>
<p>It is a bloodbath this year on the coasts. More and more students are applying to colleges, including the most reachy ones. About 4 of my students each applied to something like 18 colleges, since the Common App now makes that possible, and students can sometimes skirt whatever high school gatekeepers there are to prevent multiple apps. Students from high-value regions with common academic goals are mostly actually competing against each other (within that region). </p>
<p>As to the score business, one of my students who received a 2380 on the SAT at one sitting, wrote lovely essays (I read them all), had done independent research, and was a semi-finalist in at least one major competition (possibly two) was admitted to only one Ivy, and did not “stack” his applications only toward Ivies. Several “lesser” schools rejected him. However, he is very typical of his region, in terms of his particular niche academic strengths and his projected interests and career. Lots of people just like him, and male, and with his personal origins, in the very region in which he lives.</p>