But the sport IS a hook. |
| My neighbor's son is there now. Best public in our area, but not in the state. He was a very strong student, high test scores, varsity swimmer but no high level titles, in ECs like Science Olympiad. Hard worker, I'm sure had strong essays and great recs. |
| Athletes, legacies, URM, and Asian STEM kids. If you are not one of these and not from California, you got a <1% chance. It's not as appealing for east coast kids who want to be closer to home. |
22% - that's really low. Are the other top schools like this or is Stanford an outlier? |
| Our family knows of two boys--one Indian American, one Korean American--who got into Stanford last spring after a super brutal Ivy Day. One got rejected from every Ivy and the other got rejected by all but Columbia. Both were very high stats but very generic/packaged. The one had a "passion project" for feeding the homeless that was obviously just for college and the other did a lot of debate things (but no national awards). Both were pretty arrogant and not overly likable. Maybe a total coincidence that both got in, but I'd say the thing they had in common was being grinds, lack of authenticity, and ego. Oh, and they are both very conservative. |
Isn't Stanford's student body more liberal than most of the Ivies? Maybe not Columbia/Yale/Brown level liberal but supposedly more liberal than Harvard/Princeton/Penn. |
It's probably an outlier. Since Stanford draws heavily from California, there are probably a lot more Asian and Hispanic students than HYP. |
| Babson rejects mostly. |
NYU obviously isn't at this level, but only lists 21% white students, although it is possible that there is a certain percentage of students reported as Latinos and internationals who are also white, so the true number may be higher. Same may be true of Stanford. But probably not a significant increase. Keep in mind that Stanford is in California, which is a majority non-white state. |
| My bff's DD got into Stanford recently, she is a triple legacy (both parents and one grandparent). |
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I taught at a dc private for a decade. Under my watch:
One heiress, you would know the family name. Smart but not brilliant. One legacy with major donor dad Three recruited athlete - two crew, both within the range for admission without sports, one basketball, smart kid but would have been below 25th percentile One URM who was a gates scholar I do not recall any unhooked kids getting in. This includes kids who won national level awards in science research. |
Most of the kids I know who got in were either arrogant or lied on their apps. I think Stanford has a “type” that wouldn’t get into most Ivies. They’re not the brightest bulbs in the room either. Perhaps Stanford worries about the super smart kids turning them down for MIT/Harvard/Yale. |
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From DD’s private DMV school, the only Stanford acceptances over the past 5 years were 1) double legacy with VIP parents and obscure major; top 20 percent; 2) Olympic level swimmer, top 10 percent of graduating class.
(This is a school that does very well with all other top 10 schools apart from MIT). |
| I know 4 Stanford admits and they are all female rowers--- 3 out of 4 are over 6 feet tall! |
Apparently, Yale is no stranger to people lying on their apps. |