Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Northwestern, other Ivies What Does It Take ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

I strongly disagree with this post among legacy kids. Notre Dame is another elite school a lot of people dream about attending, and the football program does have something to add there.

I also don't think unhooked people dream about going to most of the Ivy League schools either. Stanford and HYP I can certainly believe. It was very odd seeing all of the tour busses visiting Stanford and I got a similar impression visiting Harvard myself too.

Absolutely agree with this. On the flip side, I don’t know a single soul who dreams of going to schools like UPenn (state school?) or Dartmouth from a young age.

No but they do dream of going to an Ivy League. They quickly learn which are ivies.

Nah, I don’t know any kindergarteners who know all 8 Ivy League schools. You’re not helping your case. Must suck to be a no-name Ivy League school that has to ride the coattails of Harvard, Yale and Princeton!

Sorry Junior didn't make the cut.

…you seriously think kindergarteners are out here memorizing all eight ivies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams and Amherst have single digit admissions rates. The rates you cite can only possibly by ED and if so, as a PP said, are very skewed by atheltes which they probably recruit in the same raw numbers as ivies but the colleges themselves are much smaller. At my
kids’ mcps high school, many more students were admitted to Cornell than either of these.

In the world of kids I know, the ones who were admitted to H/Y/P were true superstars. Not just perfect gpa, perfect sat and the most rigorous classes (and when I say most rigorous, I really mean it - not just thru MV but also took all of the english and social studies APs, took multiple hard science APs, and finished world language AP junior year). But also excelled in other things - music, science competitions, quizbowl or debate. These were the 2-3 kids in a class of 500 who you “knew” would one day go to H/Y/P. There are of course other students every year who get into Penn,Columbia, Dartmouth - these kids are also terrific students but don’t have that “extra” and so there are a lot more of them so it actually seems less predictable to me why Lola got into Penn and Larla
did not.

And again, I think from our HS the students have an easier time getting into Penn and Dartmouth than Williams and Amherst where the 1-2 admits are usually sports recruits (and terrific students).

My answer expands on this but generally tracks. Top 10 schools are for the very top kids at a high school. Truly, top 3-5 in class (not 5%), above 1550 test scores, major leadership (President of class, captain of championship winning team sort of stuff). They will likely get rejected to some places too but I have seen most of those kids get into 1 top 10 school that is considered the long shot - particularly if they can apply SCEA/ED.

I think where DCUM gets confused is many of us have a kid who is awesome but not quite that level: maybe 1550 SAT and near perfect grades but only top 10 kids in class. Maybe President if a smaller club. And, that kid is awesome but there are so many out there like that. I have one of these. He is not going to get into an Ivy (maybe he would have in my generation, but that is not relevant) and he is not sad about it. He knows he is accomplished but there are more qualified candidates. He has found a few schools beyond the top 20 he would be excited to attend. They are tremendous colleges.

We can all believe our kids are great and worked hard but rationally understand they are not worthy of a spot where only 6/100 kids get in. And be proud of them and excited for college!

I am sure Northwestern is a good school, but the students from our private DC high school who apply and get in NU are not the top students in the grade. Probably top 25-30%

Which private DC high school ?

I find this hard to believe. Northwestern University reports that slightly over 95% of matriculated (Fall 2020 entering class) students who graduated high school in 2020 were in the Top 10% of their HS class.

For a relative comparison, US News reports the percentage of Fall 2020 entering class who graduated in the top 10% of their high school class:

Princeton 89%
Columbia 96% (but not sure if this was part of the fraudulent date submitted by Columbia to US News)
Harvard 94%
MIT 100%
Yale 94%

Stanford 96%
U Chicago 99%
U Penn 96%
CalTech 96%
Duke 95%

Johns Hopkins 99%
Northwestern 95%
Dartmouth College 93%
Brown 95%
Vanderbilt 90%

WashUStL 86%
Cornell 84%
Rice 92%
Notre Dame 90%
Emory 83%

Georgetown 83%
Michigan 77%
Carnegie Mellon 89%
U Virginia 90%
NYU 82%

Tufts 84%
UNC-Chapel Hill 74%
Wake Forest 73%
Boston College 79%
Georgia Tech 88%

William & Mary 77%
Boston University 66%
Tulane 63%

SLACs:

Williams 95%
Amherst 855
Swarthmore 93%
Pomona 90%
Wellesley 85%

Bowdoin 84%
Claremont McKenna 73%
Carleton College 70%
Middlebury 80%
Wash & Lee 80%

Davidson 76%
Grinnell 72%
Hamilton 86%
Haverford 94%
Barnard 90%

Colby 74%
Colgate 65%
Wesleyan 67%
U Richmond 50%
Vassar 73%

Bates College 60%
Colorado College 73%
Macalester 66%
Kenyon 55%
Bucknell 54%

Skidmore 33%
Furman 44%

At many schools, only 20% of so of enrolled students had class rank reported, so this can be highly misleading. Class rank is not known or reported in Common Data Sets for the remaining 70-80%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams and Amherst have single digit admissions rates. The rates you cite can only possibly by ED and if so, as a PP said, are very skewed by atheltes which they probably recruit in the same raw numbers as ivies but the colleges themselves are much smaller. At my
kids’ mcps high school, many more students were admitted to Cornell than either of these.

In the world of kids I know, the ones who were admitted to H/Y/P were true superstars. Not just perfect gpa, perfect sat and the most rigorous classes (and when I say most rigorous, I really mean it - not just thru MV but also took all of the english and social studies APs, took multiple hard science APs, and finished world language AP junior year). But also excelled in other things - music, science competitions, quizbowl or debate. These were the 2-3 kids in a class of 500 who you “knew” would one day go to H/Y/P. There are of course other students every year who get into Penn,Columbia, Dartmouth - these kids are also terrific students but don’t have that “extra” and so there are a lot more of them so it actually seems less predictable to me why Lola got into Penn and Larla
did not.

And again, I think from our HS the students have an easier time getting into Penn and Dartmouth than Williams and Amherst where the 1-2 admits are usually sports recruits (and terrific students).

My answer expands on this but generally tracks. Top 10 schools are for the very top kids at a high school. Truly, top 3-5 in class (not 5%), above 1550 test scores, major leadership (President of class, captain of championship winning team sort of stuff). They will likely get rejected to some places too but I have seen most of those kids get into 1 top 10 school that is considered the long shot - particularly if they can apply SCEA/ED.

I think where DCUM gets confused is many of us have a kid who is awesome but not quite that level: maybe 1550 SAT and near perfect grades but only top 10 kids in class. Maybe President if a smaller club. And, that kid is awesome but there are so many out there like that. I have one of these. He is not going to get into an Ivy (maybe he would have in my generation, but that is not relevant) and he is not sad about it. He knows he is accomplished but there are more qualified candidates. He has found a few schools beyond the top 20 he would be excited to attend. They are tremendous colleges.

We can all believe our kids are great and worked hard but rationally understand they are not worthy of a spot where only 6/100 kids get in. And be proud of them and excited for college!

I am sure Northwestern is a good school, but the students from our private DC high school who apply and get in NU are not the top students in the grade. Probably top 25-30%

Which private DC high school ?

I find this hard to believe. Northwestern University reports that slightly over 95% of matriculated (Fall 2020 entering class) students who graduated high school in 2020 were in the Top 10% of their HS class.

For a relative comparison, US News reports the percentage of Fall 2020 entering class who graduated in the top 10% of their high school class:

Princeton 89%
Columbia 96% (but not sure if this was part of the fraudulent date submitted by Columbia to US News)
Harvard 94%
MIT 100%
Yale 94%

Stanford 96%
U Chicago 99%
U Penn 96%
CalTech 96%
Duke 95%

Johns Hopkins 99%
Northwestern 95%
Dartmouth College 93%
Brown 95%
Vanderbilt 90%

WashUStL 86%
Cornell 84%
Rice 92%
Notre Dame 90%
Emory 83%

Georgetown 83%
Michigan 77%
Carnegie Mellon 89%
U Virginia 90%
NYU 82%

Tufts 84%
UNC-Chapel Hill 74%
Wake Forest 73%
Boston College 79%
Georgia Tech 88%

William & Mary 77%
Boston University 66%
Tulane 63%

SLACs:

Williams 95%
Amherst 855
Swarthmore 93%
Pomona 90%
Wellesley 85%

Bowdoin 84%
Claremont McKenna 73%
Carleton College 70%
Middlebury 80%
Wash & Lee 80%

Davidson 76%
Grinnell 72%
Hamilton 86%
Haverford 94%
Barnard 90%

Colby 74%
Colgate 65%
Wesleyan 67%
U Richmond 50%
Vassar 73%

Bates College 60%
Colorado College 73%
Macalester 66%
Kenyon 55%
Bucknell 54%

Skidmore 33%
Furman 44%

I don't know how this could possibly be true. Chicago is a typical destination for DC private school kids who are more like the top 20-30%. The very top (top 10%) go to the Ivy league. Is the entire 1% at Chicago that is outside the 10% from DC?

WOW ! If you believe this, then you need to do some simple basic research and stop posting misinformation.

Dude. St. Albans 2022 sent 14 kids to Chicago from a class of 75. By definition, 7 kids were outside of the top 10%. Plus the school sent 20 kids to the Ivy League and most of these were academically above the 14 who went to Chicago.
So the Chicago admits were primarily in the 60-90% percentile of the class.

You may have incorrect information. According to the St. Albans website:

St. Albans does not rank students.

Over the past 5 years, St. Albans sent 39 students to the University of Chicago--an average of 8 per year. Certainly possible that 14 went last year (although not likely). The St. Albans website states that there were 77 graduates in 2022, not 75. (A minor discrepancy.)

It appears that the University of Chicago is the preferred--certainly the top--destination for its graduates over the past 5 years.

For the past 5 years (St. Albans graduating classes of 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, & 2022), St. Albans most attended colleges & universities were:

U Chicago 39 students matriculated in the past 5 years

Yale 19

Dartmouth 16

Tulane 13

Harvard 10

Columbia 9

Bates College 8
Davidson College 8

Northwestern 7
Georgetown 7
Boston College 7
Princeton 7
Wake Forest 7
Wash & Lee 7
WashUStL 7
Wesleyan 7

Amherst 6
Bowdoin 6
Colgate 6
Emory 6
Virginia 6

169 grads out of about 375 St. Albans grads over the past 5 years matriculated at these 21 colleges & universities. (Represents almost 45% of all college matriculations over the past 5 years.)

Three Ivy League schools (Brown, Cornell, & Penn) are not among the 21 top destinations for St. Albans grads over the past 5 years. MIT, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Williams College, and Michigan are not among the top 21 matriculations for St. Alband grads over the past 5 years.

An interesting list that suggests St. Albans students take advantage of ED 1 and ED 2 admissions to the University of Chicago.

This doesn’t mean what you might think. It’s a poorly kept secret that if you have decent scores and grades Chicago will take you from Big 3. People still prefer top ivies, Stanford, Duke, Penn, etc. but those schools don’t gobble up everyone who applies ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This doesn’t mean what you might think. It’s a poorly kept secret that if you have decent scores and grades Chicago will take you from Big 3. People still prefer top ivies, Stanford, Duke, Penn, etc. but those schools don’t gobble up everyone who applies ED.

Wow, that this list is 45% of matriculations is impressive. If Chicago is a viable backup for many good but not top students from the Big 3, that practically makes the tuition worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Williams and Amherst have single digit admissions rates. The rates you cite can only possibly by ED and if so, as a PP said, are very skewed by atheltes which they probably recruit in the same raw numbers as ivies but the colleges themselves are much smaller. At my
kids’ mcps high school, many more students were admitted to Cornell than either of these.

In the world of kids I know, the ones who were admitted to H/Y/P were true superstars. Not just perfect gpa, perfect sat and the most rigorous classes (and when I say most rigorous, I really mean it - not just thru MV but also took all of the english and social studies APs, took multiple hard science APs, and finished world language AP junior year). But also excelled in other things - music, science competitions, quizbowl or debate. These were the 2-3 kids in a class of 500 who you “knew” would one day go to H/Y/P. There are of course other students every year who get into Penn,Columbia, Dartmouth - these kids are also terrific students but don’t have that “extra” and so there are a lot more of them so it actually seems less predictable to me why Lola got into Penn and Larla
did not.

And again, I think from our HS the students have an easier time getting into Penn and Dartmouth than Williams and Amherst where the 1-2 admits are usually sports recruits (and terrific students).

My answer expands on this but generally tracks. Top 10 schools are for the very top kids at a high school. Truly, top 3-5 in class (not 5%), above 1550 test scores, major leadership (President of class, captain of championship winning team sort of stuff). They will likely get rejected to some places too but I have seen most of those kids get into 1 top 10 school that is considered the long shot - particularly if they can apply SCEA/ED.

I think where DCUM gets confused is many of us have a kid who is awesome but not quite that level: maybe 1550 SAT and near perfect grades but only top 10 kids in class. Maybe President if a smaller club. And, that kid is awesome but there are so many out there like that. I have one of these. He is not going to get into an Ivy (maybe he would have in my generation, but that is not relevant) and he is not sad about it. He knows he is accomplished but there are more qualified candidates. He has found a few schools beyond the top 20 he would be excited to attend. They are tremendous colleges.

We can all believe our kids are great and worked hard but rationally understand they are not worthy of a spot where only 6/100 kids get in. And be proud of them and excited for college!

I am sure Northwestern is a good school, but the students from our private DC high school who apply and get in NU are not the top students in the grade. Probably top 25-30%

Which private DC high school ?

I find this hard to believe. Northwestern University reports that slightly over 95% of matriculated (Fall 2020 entering class) students who graduated high school in 2020 were in the Top 10% of their HS class.

For a relative comparison, US News reports the percentage of Fall 2020 entering class who graduated in the top 10% of their high school class:

Princeton 89%
Columbia 96% (but not sure if this was part of the fraudulent date submitted by Columbia to US News)
Harvard 94%
MIT 100%
Yale 94%

Stanford 96%
U Chicago 99%
U Penn 96%
CalTech 96%
Duke 95%

Johns Hopkins 99%
Northwestern 95%
Dartmouth College 93%
Brown 95%
Vanderbilt 90%

WashUStL 86%
Cornell 84%
Rice 92%
Notre Dame 90%
Emory 83%

Georgetown 83%
Michigan 77%
Carnegie Mellon 89%
U Virginia 90%
NYU 82%

Tufts 84%
UNC-Chapel Hill 74%
Wake Forest 73%
Boston College 79%
Georgia Tech 88%

William & Mary 77%
Boston University 66%
Tulane 63%

SLACs:

Williams 95%
Amherst 855
Swarthmore 93%
Pomona 90%
Wellesley 85%

Bowdoin 84%
Claremont McKenna 73%
Carleton College 70%
Middlebury 80%
Wash & Lee 80%

Davidson 76%
Grinnell 72%
Hamilton 86%
Haverford 94%
Barnard 90%

Colby 74%
Colgate 65%
Wesleyan 67%
U Richmond 50%
Vassar 73%

Bates College 60%
Colorado College 73%
Macalester 66%
Kenyon 55%
Bucknell 54%

Skidmore 33%
Furman 44%

At many schools, only 20% of so of enrolled students had class rank reported, so this can be highly misleading. Class rank is not known or reported in Common Data Sets for the remaining 70-80%.

Sure. Look, mit is not admitting kids that are not at the top of their class. Maybe the high school won't rank the students but you can sure that MIT is directly comparing all the students applying from the same school. And guess what ..they are admitting the ones at the top of the pile. Sorry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

In the world of kids I know, the ones who were admitted to H/Y/P were true superstars. Not just perfect gpa, perfect sat and the most rigorous classes (and when I say most rigorous, I really mean it - not just thru MV but also took all of the english and social studies APs, took multiple hard science APs, and finished world language AP junior year). But also excelled in other things - music, science competitions, quizbowl or debate. These were the 2-3 kids in a class of 500 who you “knew” would one day go to H/Y/P. There are of course other students every year who get into Penn,Columbia, Dartmouth - these kids are also terrific students but don’t have that “extra” and so there are a lot more of them so it actually seems less predictable to me why Lola got into Penn and Larla
did not.

Respectfully, I think this post is just flat wrong. The poster can't predict who gets admitted to HYP or Penn, Columbia, and Dartmouth. Those "other things" listed hardly do anything to separate applicants at that elite level. You wouldn't "know" those kids would one day go to HYP even if they were legacies who grew up wearing HYP gear.

I agree with this. I'm a HYP graduate. I don't know to this day why I got in or why my classmates get in. For a while I thought the hook was one thing, years later with more perspective, I think it was probably something else. But I will never actually know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My question arose after reading another thread about kids top 3 college choices. One parent listed her daughter's top 3 choices as Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton and stated that the daughter had the stats to enter the Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton lotteries. With admission rates below 5%, the concern arose about what opportunities a high stats kid sacrifices by foregoing ED options to target these three ultra selective schools. Many private National Universities with overall admission rates under 10% have RD admission rates much closer to 5% due to the number of spots taken by ED admits. Is it wise to sacrifice ED opportunities to an elite school for an unhooked high stats applicant for a lottery shot at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton ?

The "stats" are probably top athletes in their sport in the nation.

Not if they’re recruited to play football, basketball, baseball, soccer, track, etc. none of the top recruits in those sports go to HYP except maybe Stanford on rare occasions. They’re very good high school athletes but hardly the top in the nation.

Less than 2% of high school athletes go on to play D1. Even the very bottom of D1 is top one to few percent in the country plus other top international athletes. High-level D3 athletic departments, which most elite D3 schools (MIT, Chicago, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Hopkins) have, would still be at least top 5% as well.

Well then you’re defining “top” very liberally for athletes in a way you don’t for the skills and abilities of other applicants.

Why were more people on this board not getting their kids involved in sports years ago?! It hasn't been a secret that being a highly recruited athlete is the best hook at almost all of the best schools (at some it is being a legacy). The Varsity Blues scandal shows what parents are willing to give to make their kids "recruited athletes."

From the school's perspective, what other campus activities come close to bringing together the campus community and alumni in the same way? Donations aside, teams are an important part of the campus community at almost every good school, with CalTech being the true exception. Plus, what if a couple of your basketball players end up being the Koch brothers? It still cracks me up knowing that MIT's basketball coach is actually the David H. Koch '62 Head Coach!

No one’s contesting that recruited athletes are the most important hook. But claiming that recruited athletes at Ivy League schools are “top”
athletes in their sports is simply blowing smoke.

Attendance at 90% of sporting events that are recruited is minimal. Even Ivy League football is barely attended. How many donations are flowing to the cot all fencing team?

The schools really should think about cutting some of those sports that don't have regular attendance or create any sense of community. They are also expensive to operate. Stanford tried to cut multiple sports and the alums went crazy and are now privately funding a number of them.

Ivy League football attendance isn't great but it is still far better than any other regular campus activity I can think of. Yale and Harvard both averaged over 10,000 in 2021 and Princeton, Columbia, and Dartmouth all averaged over 5,000 https://herosports.com/2021-fcs-attendance-leaders-bzbz/

Could you clarify whether averaging 5,000 is good? For five home games that only take place in the fall? Considering the number recruited athletes for football and the resources the university has to put into it, it seems that a random a cappella concert that draws 750 people is a better use of space and resources.

Even the Yale number is skewed by the fact that the Harvard Yale game was at Yale that year. Remove that game and the attendance for the other games was probably below 5,000.

The Yale Harvard game is at Yale 50% of the time. So how exactly is that skewed???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

[Anonymous]

Kids can't even name any Ivies outside HYP and maybe Columbia.

And a lot of it is regional too. Many kids in the South grow up dreaming of going to Duke. I don't know if it's similar with the midwest and Uchicago or Northwestern but I can see it. With the Dartmouth-tier Ivies, there's no home court advantage since the northeast is oversaturated with good schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

No. Plenty of kids have UChicago and Northwestern as their top choice schools, ahead of several Ivies. You seem to be uneducated, perhaps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

Curious what kind of background this poster has. Perhaps they’re an immigrant whose sole understanding of American universities comes from watching YouTube videos or reading College Confidential? Or maybe they’re 70+ years old. Or grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire. Intriguing, the makings of a parochial mind!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My question arose after reading another thread about kids top 3 college choices. One parent listed her daughter's top 3 choices as Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton and stated that the daughter had the stats to enter the Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton lotteries. With admission rates below 5%, the concern arose about what opportunities a high stats kid sacrifices by foregoing ED options to target these three ultra selective schools. Many private National Universities with overall admission rates under 10% have RD admission rates much closer to 5% due to the number of spots taken by ED admits. Is it wise to sacrifice ED opportunities to an elite school for an unhooked high stats applicant for a lottery shot at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton ?

The "stats" are probably top athletes in their sport in the nation.

Not if they’re recruited to play football, basketball, baseball, soccer, track, etc. none of the top recruits in those sports go to HYP except maybe Stanford on rare occasions. They’re very good high school athletes but hardly the top in the nation.

Less than 2% of high school athletes go on to play D1. Even the very bottom of D1 is top one to few percent in the country plus other top international athletes. High-level D3 athletic departments, which most elite D3 schools (MIT, Chicago, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Hopkins) have, would still be at least top 5% as well.

Well then you’re defining “top” very liberally for athletes in a way you don’t for the skills and abilities of other applicants.

Why were more people on this board not getting their kids involved in sports years ago?! It hasn't been a secret that being a highly recruited athlete is the best hook at almost all of the best schools (at some it is being a legacy). The Varsity Blues scandal shows what parents are willing to give to make their kids "recruited athletes."

From the school's perspective, what other campus activities come close to bringing together the campus community and alumni in the same way? Donations aside, teams are an important part of the campus community at almost every good school, with CalTech being the true exception. Plus, what if a couple of your basketball players end up being the Koch brothers? It still cracks me up knowing that MIT's basketball coach is actually the David H. Koch '62 Head Coach!

No one’s contesting that recruited athletes are the most important hook. But claiming that recruited athletes at Ivy League schools are “top”
athletes in their sports is simply blowing smoke.

Attendance at 90% of sporting events that are recruited is minimal. Even Ivy League football is barely attended. How many donations are flowing to the cot all fencing team?

The schools really should think about cutting some of those sports that don't have regular attendance or create any sense of community. They are also expensive to operate. Stanford tried to cut multiple sports and the alums went crazy and are now privately funding a number of them.

Ivy League football attendance isn't great but it is still far better than any other regular campus activity I can think of. Yale and Harvard both averaged over 10,000 in 2021 and Princeton, Columbia, and Dartmouth all averaged over 5,000 https://herosports.com/2021-fcs-attendance-leaders-bzbz/

Could you clarify whether averaging 5,000 is good? For five home games that only take place in the fall? Considering the number recruited athletes for football and the resources the university has to put into it, it seems that a random a cappella concert that draws 750 people is a better use of space and resources.

Even the Yale number is skewed by the fact that the Harvard Yale game was at Yale that year. Remove that game and the attendance for the other games was probably below 5,000.

The Yale Harvard game is at Yale 50% of the time. So how exactly is that skewed???

Because it was at Yale that year. In a year when the game is at Harvard the average attendance drops precipitously

And in years it is at Yale, having four games that attract 3,000 spectators and one game that attracts 45,000 shows that sometimes using an average is misleading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My question arose after reading another thread about kids top 3 college choices. One parent listed her daughter's top 3 choices as Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton and stated that the daughter had the stats to enter the Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton lotteries. With admission rates below 5%, the concern arose about what opportunities a high stats kid sacrifices by foregoing ED options to target these three ultra selective schools. Many private National Universities with overall admission rates under 10% have RD admission rates much closer to 5% due to the number of spots taken by ED admits. Is it wise to sacrifice ED opportunities to an elite school for an unhooked high stats applicant for a lottery shot at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton ?

The "stats" are probably top athletes in their sport in the nation.

Not if they’re recruited to play football, basketball, baseball, soccer, track, etc. none of the top recruits in those sports go to HYP except maybe Stanford on rare occasions. They’re very good high school athletes but hardly the top in the nation.

Less than 2% of high school athletes go on to play D1. Even the very bottom of D1 is top one to few percent in the country plus other top international athletes. High-level D3 athletic departments, which most elite D3 schools (MIT, Chicago, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Hopkins) have, would still be at least top 5% as well.

Well then you’re defining “top” very liberally for athletes in a way you don’t for the skills and abilities of other applicants.

Why were more people on this board not getting their kids involved in sports years ago?! It hasn't been a secret that being a highly recruited athlete is the best hook at almost all of the best schools (at some it is being a legacy). The Varsity Blues scandal shows what parents are willing to give to make their kids "recruited athletes."

From the school's perspective, what other campus activities come close to bringing together the campus community and alumni in the same way? Donations aside, teams are an important part of the campus community at almost every good school, with CalTech being the true exception. Plus, what if a couple of your basketball players end up being the Koch brothers? It still cracks me up knowing that MIT's basketball coach is actually the David H. Koch '62 Head Coach!

Yikes! The elite schools churn out some evil and powerful people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody grows up from kindergarten I want to go to Chicago or Northwestern. Or even Amherst or Williams or Pomona. They are forced into it. They dream about going to Ivies. Only exception is somebody who may have grown up as a Duke or Georgetown basketball fan.

Absolutely nobody grows up from kindergarten saying they want to go to UPenn or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Brown.

Also, why is your grammar so poor?

The grammar is fine--it is a chat board. Not a dissertation. Secondly, I can't help you if you take everything so literally. You are missing the point. People want to go to Ivies. Period. End of story. Chicago, Northwestern, etc. happen when they can't make Ivies.

Curious what kind of background this poster has. Perhaps they’re an immigrant whose sole understanding of American universities comes from watching YouTube videos or reading College Confidential? Or maybe they’re 70+ years old. Or grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire. Intriguing, the makings of a parochial mind!

Perhaps you need to go back to your MAGA rallies. Again this is a chat board not an academic paper. If you cannot see the difference, I question your judgment.