Just realized application fee alone will cost $1000+

[Anonymous]

Oh and if your instate VA, UVA is not a safety for anyone, Va Tech is not reliable as a safety either, W&M probably still is for a super high stats kid. When I say safety i mean a real solid safety.

My kid's high reach was Middlebury and her safety was Clemson, gives you a sense of the spread.

[Anonymous]

The amount of work in crafting essays is going to be more than you realize! My kid applied to 11 schools and the lead up to the RD submission deadline was painful.

Applying to more schools should improve your probability of admission to at least one, as long as you’re qualified. My kid applied to 4 serious reaches (acceptance rate < 10%) and got into 1, waitlisted at 1, and rejected at 2. She got into all matches and safeties.

Calculating independent probabilities, if dc applies to 10 schools, 5 with a 5% probability of admission and 5 with a 10% probability of admission, then the probability of getting shut out is 46%. Add 2 more applications with a 10% probability of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 37%. You can use an online calculator like calculator.net to play around with the probabilities. It can help you understand that the probabilities may not be what you expect. For example, if you apply to 10 schools with a 10% probability of acceptance, your probability of getting shut out is 35%. Add 2 schools with a 75% of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 2.2%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is not even planning to apply for that many, probably around 15, which is not much for high stat kids, since their reach and target schools overlap, it's like playing the lottery

Not independent odds, so no, it's not like buying more tickets.

Wrong, they are entirely independent events, despite this being impossible to gage WRT college applications. Your acceptance or rejection at one school does not change the odds of the decision at another school, so they remain entirely independent events. The bizarreness of this process does not change the rules of mathematics.

Dependent events are like pulling a red card from a deck reduces the odds of the next one being red also. It's how card counting is effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The amount of work in crafting essays is going to be more than you realize! My kid applied to 11 schools and the lead up to the RD submission deadline was painful.

Applying to more schools should improve your probability of admission to at least one, as long as you’re qualified. My kid applied to 4 serious reaches (acceptance rate < 10%) and got into 1, waitlisted at 1, and rejected at 2. She got into all matches and safeties.

Calculating independent probabilities, if dc applies to 10 schools, 5 with a 5% probability of admission and 5 with a 10% probability of admission, then the probability of getting shut out is 46%. Add 2 more applications with a 10% probability of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 37%. You can use an online calculator like calculator.net to play around with the probabilities. It can help you understand that the probabilities may not be what you expect. For example, if you apply to 10 schools with a 10% probability of acceptance, your probability of getting shut out is 35%. Add 2 schools with a 75% of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 2.2%.

I am the PP above who pointed out that these are in fact independent events. However, the flaw in your approach is that you have no idea what any one persons odds of admission are at any one school - so you can't accurately calculate your chances this way and it is foolish to try. For example, your odds may be zero at all 15 schools.

You can't know the odds the way you know there are 52 cards in a deck, so this exacting method of calculation is useless. Despite that, they remain independent events. And the famous "Reach-Match-Safety" approach is essentially non-quantified game theory applied. It remains the best one I know of.

[Anonymous]

IME it is not crazy to spread a wide net if your kid's profile is unpredictable (lopsided), as even with a predictable profile it is a crap shoot, also if there are some definite "do not wants" like: do not want a large state university. That makes it tricky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My high stat kid applied to 16 and only got into 4. With a single-sitting 1560 SAT and 4.4 GPA on the most difficult curriculum possible and 13 AP/DE and boatloads of EC, awards etc. White male going into CS. So a lot depends on major and your demographics but we were pretty surprised at results. They aren't kidding when they say top schools are a lottery ticket- my kid has a 167 IQ and didn't get into any of them. He is going to do brilliant things regardless, but I just saw a hint of myself a year ago in your post never realizing it largely doesn't matter how talented you are in elite college admissions.

+1 white/male/computer science needs a wide spread of applications from MIT to RIT, and lots of in between.

[Anonymous]

1000 is nothing. Tuition is crazy. That being said...cut the list to 12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The amount of work in crafting essays is going to be more than you realize! My kid applied to 11 schools and the lead up to the RD submission deadline was painful.

Applying to more schools should improve your probability of admission to at least one, as long as you’re qualified. My kid applied to 4 serious reaches (acceptance rate < 10%) and got into 1, waitlisted at 1, and rejected at 2. She got into all matches and safeties.

Calculating independent probabilities, if dc applies to 10 schools, 5 with a 5% probability of admission and 5 with a 10% probability of admission, then the probability of getting shut out is 46%. Add 2 more applications with a 10% probability of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 37%. You can use an online calculator like calculator.net to play around with the probabilities. It can help you understand that the probabilities may not be what you expect. For example, if you apply to 10 schools with a 10% probability of acceptance, your probability of getting shut out is 35%. Add 2 schools with a 75% of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 2.2%.

I am the PP above who pointed out that these are in fact independent events. However, the flaw in your approach is that you have no idea what any one persons odds of admission are at any one school - so you can't accurately calculate your chances this way and it is foolish to try. For example, your odds may be zero at all 15 schools.

You can't know the odds the way you know there are 52 cards in a deck, so this exacting method of calculation is useless. Despite that, they remain independent events. And the famous "Reach-Match-Safety" approach is essentially non-quantified game theory applied. It remains the best one I know of.

Seldom in risk assessments does anyone know the true probability! This doesn’t mean that it’s not helpful to know that 10 schools with 10 % probability does not mean a 100% chance of acceptance! Playing around with a reasonable range or probabilities can help create some reasonable expectations and some guidance in if it’s worth applying to an additional school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My high stat kid applied to 16 and only got into 4. With a single-sitting 1560 SAT and 4.4 GPA on the most difficult curriculum possible and 13 AP/DE and boatloads of EC, awards etc. White male going into CS. So a lot depends on major and your demographics but we were pretty surprised at results. They aren't kidding when they say top schools are a lottery ticket- my kid has a 167 IQ and didn't get into any of them. He is going to do brilliant things regardless, but I just saw a hint of myself a year ago in your post never realizing it largely doesn't matter how talented you are in elite college admissions.

And your kid is very smart and with a major in CS, it really doesn't matter where he goes. He will get a great job likely making over $100K easily when he graduates in CS. So pick a school that's a fit for him, where he will be happy and be able to shine (hint, it's often not at the top 20 schools where everyone is equally smart) and you can afford. With a CS degree his future is set as long as he works hard. Does not matter where the degree is from

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My high stat kid applied to 16 and only got into 4. With a single-sitting 1560 SAT and 4.4 GPA on the most difficult curriculum possible and 13 AP/DE and boatloads of EC, awards etc. White male going into CS. So a lot depends on major and your demographics but we were pretty surprised at results. They aren't kidding when they say top schools are a lottery ticket- my kid has a 167 IQ and didn't get into any of them. He is going to do brilliant things regardless, but I just saw a hint of myself a year ago in your post never realizing it largely doesn't matter how talented you are in elite college admissions.

So where did he end up going?

[Anonymous]

15 is too many. We did 12, and that ended up being too many. She got into almost all of them and she had too many choices. And she would’ve been fine at any of them. And I’m not bragging by the way, they were all ranked 50 to 100 schools; she was just your regular slightly above average kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seldom in risk assessments does anyone know the true probability!

Sorry I disagree, this is how casinos make money, and people who do actuarial risk assessment deal with large numbers of events and are unconcerned with any one individual result. In this application process you ONLY care about the individual result, so traditional game theory for risk assessment is nearly useless.

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t mean that it’s not helpful to know that 10 schools with 10 % probability does not mean a 100% chance of acceptance!

Well it wouldn't be 100% even if you knew for certain you had a 1 in 10 everywhere https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/4260694/how-to-calculate-the-probability-of-an-event-with-10-chance-of-happening-occurs

Anonymous wrote: Playing around with a reasonable range or probabilities can help create some reasonable expectations and some guidance in if it’s worth applying to an additional school.

Again I disagree. I think false application of this can and does create unreasonable expectations. I have seen it happen again and again. This is how real safeties get left off lists, because someone decides they have a high chance with a wide range of reaches and a few matches.

Stay away from bad math, and stick to R-M-S.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is not even planning to apply for that many, probably around 15, which is not much for high stat kids, since their reach and target schools overlap, it's like playing the lottery

Not independent odds, so no, it's not like buying more tickets.

Wrong, they are entirely independent events, despite this being impossible to gage WRT college applications. Your acceptance or rejection at one school does not change the odds of the decision at another school, so they remain entirely independent events. The bizarreness of this process does not change the rules of mathematics.

Dependent events are like pulling a red card from a deck reduces the odds of the next one being red also. It's how card counting is effective.

The event is not the reader, it's the applicant.

[Anonymous]

15 schools is just an unfocused “spray and pray” approach to college admissions…..not terribly bright.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is not even planning to apply for that many, probably around 15, which is not much for high stat kids, since their reach and target schools overlap, it's like playing the lottery

Not independent odds, so no, it's not like buying more tickets.

Wrong, they are entirely independent events, despite this being impossible to gage WRT college applications. Your acceptance or rejection at one school does not change the odds of the decision at another school, so they remain entirely independent events. The bizarreness of this process does not change the rules of mathematics.

Dependent events are like pulling a red card from a deck reduces the odds of the next one being red also. It's how card counting is effective.

The event is not the reader, it's the applicant.

The event is the result - acceptance, rejection, or WL. Red or Black. 2 through 12.

Your decision from Harvard has no effect on your decision from Yale, Penn State, or anywhere else. Therefore they are absolutely independent events.

https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/probability-events-independent.html

https://www.cuemath.com/data/independent-events/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_(probability_theory)