Ivy League - Rural South Admission

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1300 sat's and you got in? were you an athletic recruit?

i got shut out of all ivies with a 1490 and top 2% of my graduating class from PA. and this was 15 years ago.

yes i'm asian.

lol, my family made sure the other 3 siblings became recruited athletes. we learned about 'the game' the hard way.

1490 for an ivy is simply too low. This is not a shocker PP.

1490 was above the 75th percentile back then for penn and cornell.

the medians back then were low 1400's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1300/1600 is very low for a white kid to be admitted to an ivy without a major hook. It sounds like this was many years ago, when it wasn't so difficult.

Ok maybe I am venturing into too much identifying info but my curiosity is getting the best of me

1) white male

2) college years 1996-2000 (seems like a long time ago and much harder now right?)

3) not athlete at all

4) trumpet in school band

5) only hook i can think of is Eagle Scout?

6) or the rural southern diversity element -- which apparently used to be very potent??

Not to humblebrag, but besides the ivy I attended, I was also accepted to MIT, Harvey Midd, Duke -- so there was some pervasive affirmative type action at that time. I was rejected from Harvard, my only rejection.

Does coming from rural schools still hold weight? Maybe I should move home to improve my kids chances . Nah, I was woefully unprepared for college; going from a far too easy high school to elite university was a shock, and honesty my confidence never recovered which was a factor in my very modest career (I would have ended up in same place am now if I had gone to State U).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1300 sat's and you got in? were you an athletic recruit?

i got shut out of all ivies with a 1490 and top 2% of my graduating class from PA. and this was 15 years ago.

yes i'm asian.

lol, my family made sure the other 3 siblings became recruited athletes. we learned about 'the game' the hard way.

Rural PA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1300 sat's and you got in? were you an athletic recruit?

i got shut out of all ivies with a 1490 and top 2% of my graduating class from PA. and this was 15 years ago.

yes i'm asian.

lol, my family made sure the other 3 siblings became recruited athletes. we learned about 'the game' the hard way.

Rural PA?

York, pa

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1300/1600 is very low for a white kid to be admitted to an ivy without a major hook. It sounds like this was many years ago, when it wasn't so difficult.

It depends on the year. When I took the SAT (1983) the average SAT at Harvard was a bit over 1300. They've recentered the SAT twice since then, so if that 1300 was from the 80's it was probably around the 98th percentile and about the same as a 1500 today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1300/1600 is very low for a white kid to be admitted to an ivy without a major hook. It sounds like this was many years ago, when it wasn't so difficult.

It depends on the year. When I took the SAT (1983) the average SAT at Harvard was a bit over 1300. They've recentered the SAT twice since then, so if that 1300 was from the 80's it was probably around the 98th percentile and about the same as a 1500 today.

You were HS 1984?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you didn't say what your GPA was, or what you majored in. Do you think those factors could make a difference?

4.0 GPA, thats a given for these rural school. They just aren't that rigorous. Your teachers have degrees from community college + local commuter college. Totally different world than the schools my kids are attending.

I majored in engineering -- I needed a major that would allow me to work and support myself after college -- the cost of Med or law school was completely unfathomable. My parents house sold for $60k in 2006; $100ks in loans for professional school? Completely outside my comfort zone. I needed to support myself and escape the rural vortex of my home town. I graduated in 2000, FYI. So not the 70s like PP.

I know but I graduated in 2003 and I think things are a lot different in college admissions today. I don't think I would get in to my alma mater today.

[Anonymous]

OP, I had to reread your post to understand what you were specifically asking for.

The answer is yes. You were given a form of affirmative action. Call it geographic / social diversity. An applicant from a rural town in the South is unique by Ivy standards.

I do not know when you attended the school but when I was at my Ivy in the 1990s a score in the low 1300s was not uncommon. Recruited athletes, legacies with otherwise stellar grades/applications, even normal students with one major hook (first chair at the state youth orchestra) could get accepted with a 1300 score and sometimes even in the high 1200s. How do I know this? Had friends who worked in admissions office. And I had high school classmates who got into Penn and Cornell as recruited athletes with scores around 1300 or slightly less. And I do remember reading books on admissions and candidates were profiled including scores. FYI these were white students. AAs and Latinos could get accepted on even lower scores. The typical white student still had scores of 1400+ but 1300+ was not unusual.

Ironically I think there's a much greater emphasis on higher scores now than there was 20 years ago because the sheer volume of applications forces the schools to weed out candidates even more strictly than they did. And 20 years ago was even tougher than 20 years earlier than that.

I also would not move back to the rural South to improve admissions chances. People care too much about Ivy admissions when in reality it means nothing in the long run. If your kid is bright and capable, he/she will be fine. Focus on as good a high school as possible and that will help more than the college, methinks. Being well prepared in high school --> excellent grades from your flagship state university is probably more helpful than unprepared --> low GPA from an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1300/1600 is very low for a white kid to be admitted to an ivy without a major hook. It sounds like this was many years ago, when it wasn't so difficult.

Ok maybe I am venturing into too much identifying info but my curiosity is getting the best of me

1) white male

2) college years 1996-2000 (seems like a long time ago and much harder now right?)

3) not athlete at all

4) trumpet in school band

5) only hook i can think of is Eagle Scout?

6) or the rural southern diversity element -- which apparently used to be very potent??

Not to humblebrag, but besides the ivy I attended, I was also accepted to MIT, Harvey Midd, Duke -- so there was some pervasive affirmative type action at that time. I was rejected from Harvard, my only rejection.

Does coming from rural schools still hold weight? Maybe I should move home to improve my kids chances . Nah, I was woefully unprepared for college; going from a far too easy high school to elite university was a shock, and honesty my confidence never recovered which was a factor in my very modest career (I would have ended up in same place am now if I had gone to State U).

OP, I think it is still a true to this days. I don't have statistics and I am sure colleges will deny having any quotas for rural areas, but I know few people like you who got in from very rural areas (one from West Virginia got to Ivy, and one from N Dakota got to Air Force Academy). Both of them doing well professionally, but both of them admitted that that was the only decisive factor why they got in (similar stats as your: low SAT, nothing extra, not athletes, etc.).

I was wondering sometimes if I should move with kids to the rural area, but I was too scared to bet on this.

I think it is similar to colleges keeping quotas for kids coming from overseas.

[Anonymous]

This is rumored to happen within Virginia as well for UVA, W and M, etc. Easier to get in if you're from the Eastern Shore, rural part of VA up near the TN border, etc.

[Anonymous]

1300 in 1992 when I graduated was over the 95th percentile.

Then they changed the test in 1994 again a few yrs later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1300 sat's and you got in? were you an athletic recruit?

i got shut out of all ivies with a 1490 and top 2% of my graduating class from PA. and this was 15 years ago.

yes i'm asian.

lol, my family made sure the other 3 siblings became recruited athletes. we learned about 'the game' the hard way.

You're Asian and that was 15 yrs ago.

In 1992 I got in to multiple Ivy's with 1220 and then retook it and got a 1300.
My best friend was accepted to Penn with a 1220. I remember because we got the same score.
My brother got in to Penn and Northwestern with something around a 1320.
My (future) husband to Cornell and Princeton with a 1350.


We were all "smart" but completely generic white kids from Pennsylvania.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you didn't say what your GPA was, or what you majored in. Do you think those factors could make a difference?

4.0 GPA, thats a given for these rural school. They just aren't that rigorous. Your teachers have degrees from community college + local commuter college. Totally different world than the schools my kids are attending.

I majored in engineering -- I needed a major that would allow me to work and support myself after college -- the cost of Med or law school was completely unfathomable. My parents house sold for $60k in 2006; $100ks in loans for professional school? Completely outside my comfort zone. I needed to support myself and escape the rural vortex of my home town. I graduated in 2000, FYI. So not the 70s like PP.

Huh? Are you really saying that the typical rural high school student has a 4.0 GPA? You're out of your mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you didn't say what your GPA was, or what you majored in. Do you think those factors could make a difference?

4.0 GPA, thats a given for these rural school. They just aren't that rigorous. Your teachers have degrees from community college + local commuter college. Totally different world than the schools my kids are attending.

I majored in engineering -- I needed a major that would allow me to work and support myself after college -- the cost of Med or law school was completely unfathomable. My parents house sold for $60k in 2006; $100ks in loans for professional school? Completely outside my comfort zone. I needed to support myself and escape the rural vortex of my home town. I graduated in 2000, FYI. So not the 70s like PP.

Huh? Are you really saying that the typical rural high school student has a 4.0 GPA? You're out of your mind.

Agree