Top 10 Universities - Holistic Admissions Fact or Fiction

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

I count maybe 10-15 "outlier" green and blue dots. You do know that harvard received 35,000 applications this year and only 2,100 acceptances were mailed out 6.2% of applications, and the 865 come from EA.

Think about it: if you were Harvard and you got 35K applicants, wouldn't you choose the top ones? If you were sitting there looking at all of those, wouldn't the first thing you would do is cut them down to a manageable size of maybe 6000? rejecting 29,000 on the first cut? What do you think top 10 schools are doing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of an actual example of a kid that got into one of these schools without near perfect SAT or GPA, besides sports stars? Please provide specific examples, if so. I am so tired of sitting through tours and hearing this and then seeing their GPA/ SAT ranges.

answer: no. Unless they were sports stars of the national rank.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

I count maybe 10-15 "outlier" green and blue dots. You do know that harvard received 35,000 applications this year and only 2,100 acceptances were mailed out 6.2% of applications, and the 865 come from EA.

The scatter gram may or may not be representative, but you don't think it shows 35,000 dots do you? Not all applicants are shown. I see quite a few green and blue dots at the 30 ACT score - that is hardly perfect. And this is HARVARD, there are other top schools with more "outliers" - generally these are those with one of the Big 3 Hooks. Probably more UREM and Athlete than Legacy, but some of all to be sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

I count maybe 10-15 "outlier" green and blue dots. You do know that harvard received 35,000 applications this year and only 2,100 acceptances were mailed out 6.2% of applications, and the 865 come from EA.

Think about it: if you were Harvard and you got 35K applicants, wouldn't you choose the top ones? If you were sitting there looking at all of those, wouldn't the first thing you would do is cut them down to a manageable size of maybe 6000? rejecting 29,000 on the first cut? What do you think top 10 schools are doing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

I count maybe 10-15 "outlier" green and blue dots. You do know that harvard received 35,000 applications this year and only 2,100 acceptances were mailed out 6.2% of applications, and the 865 come from EA.

Think about it: if you were Harvard and you got 35K applicants, wouldn't you choose the top ones? If you were sitting there looking at all of those, wouldn't the first thing you would do is cut them down to a manageable size of maybe 6000? rejecting 29,000 on the first cut? What do you think top 10 schools are doing?

They probably could fill the class with applicants with 3.9+ GPA and 2300+ SAT, but there plainly aren't doing that. Who are they making exceptions for? HOOKS - mainly UREM, some athletes, some legacy, some handicapped and other exceptional cases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

I count maybe 10-15 "outlier" green and blue dots. You do know that harvard received 35,000 applications this year and only 2,100 acceptances were mailed out 6.2% of applications, and the 865 come from EA.

Think about it: if you were Harvard and you got 35K applicants, wouldn't you choose the top ones? If you were sitting there looking at all of those, wouldn't the first thing you would do is cut them down to a manageable size of maybe 6000? rejecting 29,000 on the first cut? What do you think top 10 schools are doing?

They probably could fill the class with applicants with 3.9+ GPA and 2300+ SAT, but there plainly aren't doing that. Who are they making exceptions for? HOOKS - mainly UREM, some athletes, some legacy, some handicapped and other exceptional cases.

I'm gonna guess legacies and certain types of athletes. Harvard has a "Z List" where they put certain legacies who aren't quite up to snuff, for entry the following year. Pretty sure that Harvard has a gazillion URMS with near-perfect stats, so getting URMs isn't a question of lowering standards. Getting legacies sometimes is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

I count maybe 10-15 "outlier" green and blue dots. You do know that harvard received 35,000 applications this year and only 2,100 acceptances were mailed out 6.2% of applications, and the 865 come from EA.

Think about it: if you were Harvard and you got 35K applicants, wouldn't you choose the top ones? If you were sitting there looking at all of those, wouldn't the first thing you would do is cut them down to a manageable size of maybe 6000? rejecting 29,000 on the first cut? What do you think top 10 schools are doing?

They probably could fill the class with applicants with 3.9+ GPA and 2300+ SAT, but there plainly aren't doing that. Who are they making exceptions for? HOOKS - mainly UREM, some athletes, some legacy, some handicapped and other exceptional cases.

I'm gonna guess legacies and certain types of athletes. Harvard has a "Z List" where they put certain legacies who aren't quite up to snuff, for entry the following year. Pretty sure that Harvard has a gazillion URMS with near-perfect stats, so getting URMs isn't a question of lowering standards. Getting legacies sometimes is.

Should clarify, these aren't just any legacies on the Z list. These are the kids with families that are really important to Harvard for some reason or another, often involving money.

[Anonymous]

Here is more complete Harvard information:

http://features.thecrimson.com/2013/frosh-survey/admissions.html

As noted recruited athletes have an average SAT score that is 137 points less than the overall average.

Harvard stop reporting average UREM scores years ago, but at last report the average was about 100 points less than the overall average.

These two categories alone cannot account for the many "non perfect" scores,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is more complete Harvard information:

http://features.thecrimson.com/2013/frosh-survey/admissions.html

As noted recruited athletes have an average SAT score that is 137 points less than the overall average.

Harvard stop reporting average UREM scores years ago, but at last report the average was about 100 points less than the overall average.

These two categories alone cannot account for the many "non perfect" scores,

The article says the average SAT score is 2237 and that recruited athletes scored 173 points (not 137 points) lower than their non-recruited classmates. Presumably, non-recruited students had SATs higher than 2237, to produce a weighted average of 2237 when the athletes are included, but the article doesn't give us enough information to reweight everything. So even if we assume that the difference is the full 173 below 2237 (which it isn't, for the reasons I just described), then the average SAT of recruited athletes is 2237 - 173 = 2064. That's still not shabby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

I count maybe 10-15 "outlier" green and blue dots. You do know that harvard received 35,000 applications this year and only 2,100 acceptances were mailed out 6.2% of applications, and the 865 come from EA.

Think about it: if you were Harvard and you got 35K applicants, wouldn't you choose the top ones? If you were sitting there looking at all of those, wouldn't the first thing you would do is cut them down to a manageable size of maybe 6000? rejecting 29,000 on the first cut? What do you think top 10 schools are doing?

They probably could fill the class with applicants with 3.9+ GPA and 2300+ SAT, but there plainly aren't doing that. Who are they making exceptions for? HOOKS - mainly UREM, some athletes, some legacy, some handicapped and other exceptional cases.

I'm gonna guess legacies and certain types of athletes. Harvard has a "Z List" where they put certain legacies who aren't quite up to snuff, for entry the following year. Pretty sure that Harvard has a gazillion URMS with near-perfect stats, so getting URMs isn't a question of lowering standards. Getting legacies sometimes is.

There are probably only 250 AA kids each year with sat scores above 1500. Hardly a gazillion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"BWAHAHAHA! YOu do know all those little red dots are "denieds"? "

Which has what to do about the green and blue dots?

I count maybe 10-15 "outlier" green and blue dots. You do know that harvard received 35,000 applications this year and only 2,100 acceptances were mailed out 6.2% of applications, and the 865 come from EA.

Think about it: if you were Harvard and you got 35K applicants, wouldn't you choose the top ones? If you were sitting there looking at all of those, wouldn't the first thing you would do is cut them down to a manageable size of maybe 6000? rejecting 29,000 on the first cut? What do you think top 10 schools are doing?

They probably could fill the class with applicants with 3.9+ GPA and 2300+ SAT, but there plainly aren't doing that. Who are they making exceptions for? HOOKS - mainly UREM, some athletes, some legacy, some handicapped and other exceptional cases.

I'm gonna guess legacies and certain types of athletes. Harvard has a "Z List" where they put certain legacies who aren't quite up to snuff, for entry the following year. Pretty sure that Harvard has a gazillion URMS with near-perfect stats, so getting URMs isn't a question of lowering standards. Getting legacies sometimes is.

There are probably only 250 AA kids each year with sat scores above 1500. Hardly a gazillion.

And there's one jacka$$ on this thread, and it's you!

[Anonymous]

I'm a Harvard grad and think admissions has now become a total crap-shoot. The only two "outlier" stories I am away of (which may be true but I can't personally verify) was a young man who had managed to become an EMT with the local volunteer fire department before applying. His grades were in the B range. I don't remember his test scores. But you can imagine his essays were amazing. The other I am told is true: the head of the orchestra is walking with the director of admissions across the quad and the director of admissions says "Bill, something's troubling you?". Bill says "No, just working out in my head how we are going to do this piece - not enough oboeists". Next year, 12 oboeists in the freshman class. Even if not true, I thought it was a fun story.

As for legacies, I am told that they can make up 30% of the freshman class but the parents have to be big givers (I have not been a big giver) or "development cases". I am told that graduates of the professional schools, which I am, do not count as legacies to undergraduate admissions even if they have given a lot to the B School or Law School, etc. I don't know if that is true.

I do know all admissions officers get very excited over "first generation" kids, which I was - and that often includes minorities.

[Anonymous]

Please tell me more about the "Z List" - are those deferred for a year so the applicant has more time to take advanced courses?

[Anonymous]

What is "near perfect?"

In the universe of all college students, a score of 30 on the ACT is damn near "near perfect." but among Top Schools it is iffy.

Perfect on the ACT is 36. If we say 35 is "near" perfect, then 75% of those admitted to Harvard are less than "near perfect" - 25% scored less than 32 on the ACT.

People imagine that every student admitted has a perfect test score, but it just isn't so.

[Anonymous]

"there's a lot of red hidden in that upper right hand corner underneath the blue and green" - Harvard's own words. http://collegeapps.about.com/od/GPA-SAT-ACT-Graphs/ss/harvard-admission-gpa-sat-act.htm.