<p>The Jeremy Lin Effect, Asian-American Harvard Basketball player makes it into the NBA. I proposed that it is harder to get into HARVARD. Here is why. There are approximately 1.8 million high school seniors in the U.S give or take and there are only 3000 or so acceptances at Harvard per year. Although they do not all apply, they may apply. Now, there are only 36,000 college basketball players in the US, they may not all apply, and there are approximately 450 spots in the NBA which has maybe 60 available spots for a rookie. What do you think?</p>
<p>I know this is only in jest but you’re not comparing apples to apples. Yes there are 1.8M HS seniors. But why do you use the comparatively small 36K college hoops players? Why don’t you list every 18-25 year old who plays BBall? Why are you limiting yourself to only those with access to great training? You aren’t limiting the potential Harvard pool (1.8M HS Seniors)</p>
<p>According to <a href=“http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p20-533.pdf[/url]”>http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p20-533.pdf</a>, about 16 million students are enrolled in high school. Divide that by 4, subtract for drop outs and add in some home schoolers, we get 4 million high school seniors. </p>
<p>In 2009 Harvard accepted about 2050 applicants (yea, that was 2009, but I’m too lazy to find more recent data). </p>
<p>2050/4,000,000 = .0005125</p>
<p>60/3,600 = .0166666666666666666666666 (you get it)</p>
<p>Obviously, not all seniors want to go to college. Likewise, we aren’t accounting for all the high school players who couldn’t play in college, and all the DII and DIII players who wanted to play in the NBA but couldn’t. Whatevs, that’s enough statistics for one day.</p>
<p>But this is incorrect! In this assumption, you’re taking the entire population of high school students and comparing it to how many will get accepted. ANYONE can be a high school students so this number is comparably large. Therefore giving a low percentage chance at Harvard (based on a large and widespread population).
But when you calculate the chances of getting into the NBA, you’re taking a small population of basketball players (college players, who have to be good in order to compete at this level). You should instead take every person viable for the NBA based on age and gender and then calculate the percentage.</p>
<p>As of now, you’re comparing the chances of getting into Harvard for any student (even the incredibly terrible ones) against the chances of a college basketball player (who are already a select population who are good at basketball) getting into the NBA</p>
<p>So yea…statistics n’ stuff. haha</p>
<p>I agree with everyone else.</p>
<p>You are comparing the NBA based on capability and you are comparing Harvard with a wide net.</p>
<p>To make it equal, compare both with capability. You get 450 possibl nba spots/36,000 people with capable skills (1.25%).</p>
<p>Them with Harvard, we can assume that the only people capable of getting in are the applicants, so that would just be Harvard’s acceptance rate: 6%.</p>
<p>Thus, it’s easier to get into harvard than the NBA.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Why must you capitalize every letter in Harvard?</p></li>
<li><p>While everyone else is correct in pointing out your massively flawed attempt at statistics, there’s also the matter of absolute (rather than comparative) skill required. To evaluate which is more difficult, you’d need to also evaluate each requirement for the NBA and each requirement for Harvard as to its difficulty for an individual. Is it easier to gain the skills and attain the credentials (used loosely) necessary to play in the NBA or be admitted to Harvard?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>RedSeven is completely correct!</p>
<p>What about the Steven Hawking types? 100% chance in harvard, zero percent in NBA. Now what about Shaq? </p>
<p>This is flawed from the start!</p>
<p>Okay, my statistics are flawed, but at least, the manner to get into the NBA is open. Getting into Harvard is not transparent at all; what scores do you need to attain? This is vague. Harvard legacies get in at a higher percentage, but Michael Jordan’s sons do not have a higher chance than others.<br>
In the NBA, you try out for teams and you get cut or you make the team. The NBA is more objective versus Harvard which is more subjective and harder to get into because of its subjectivity.<br>
NBA= Average player: height= 6’7", points per game=12.0, vertical jump 30 inches
Harvard: SAT=2300, maybe, SAT I and II= 750, maybe, then subjectivity begins…</p>
<p>…and your point being? Tryouts and combines for Harvard? I didn’t know that the Harvard brand < the NBA.</p>
<p>LOL</p>
<p>Heh, I didn’t actually think those were the true percentages for Harvard/NBA, I was just cleaning up some of OP’s stats.</p>
<p>NBA is harder to get into than Harvard. Michael Jordan’s kids aren’t going to the NBA. Each year 60 Rookies get drafted, and a lot of them get cut.</p>
<p>Jeremy Lin aside, what gets you into Harvard doesn’t get you into the NBA, and vice versa. I have 0.00% chance of getting into the NBA but at least a shot at Harvard.</p>