NY Times article on strategies for applying to elite colleges
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Anonymous
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Here's an article from today's New York Times about how applying to many elite colleges, instead of focusing on just one or two elite colleges, improves the odds of getting into *any* elite college. I think we've had this discussion here before, but for those who are still interested, here's the latest piece on this strategy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/upshot/for-accomplished-students-reaching-a-top-college-isnt-actually-that-hard.html?hpw&rref=education&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0 The article defines an "elite" college as being one of 113 colleges that took an average of 32% of applicants. It goes without saying that an *average* admissions rate of 32% by definition includes lots of schools with higher acceptance rates, on the other end of the distribution from colleges like Stanford and Harvard that take 5-6% of applicants. I don't know what the 113th school's acceptance rate was, but it was probably over 50%. Here's the Barron's list of selective schools the article is referring to: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/04/business/economy/economix-selectivity-table.html. You can select by competitiveness on a scale of 1-4 (click on the column header) and then the schools pop up first by selectivity ranking and then alphabetically within the selectivity ranking (you can't see the actual index values, or rank for actual index values, within the broader rankings of 1, 2, 3 or 4). If you toss this into Excel, only 82 of these get the "1" ranking for "most competitive." Granted, these 82 schools include some colleges that are really tough to get into. But these 82 "most competitive" schools also include places like Whitman College, which takes 56% or maybe half of applicants (http://www.whitman.edu/admission-and-aid/learn-more/frequently-asked-questions). To get to the 113 colleges this NY Times article refers to, you'd have to dip into the schools that rank 2 for "highly competitive plus", and then you're looking at some tough schools again, as well as some schools like Centre College and Hillsdale College (again, you can't tell which schools within "highly competitive plus=2" have a higher index values than other schools that also have 2s). So I'm not really sure what's going on with that ranking. I saw during a quick Google that College Confidential has some threads on the Barron's index, so perhaps I'll have time to get to that later today. My guess is, the cut-off is somewhere around 50% (taking half of applicants). Anyway, to me, at least, it's not really a surprising result that most "well-qualified" applicants got into at least one "elite" college, defined as being a college that takes fewer than half, or up to something like half, of applicants. The larger point of the article seemed to be, for your well-qualified but unhooked kid, it's basically a crapshoot. So, like flipping a coin, you can improve your odds by applying to multiple colleges that take 6-15% of applicants. The point is, your goal shouldn't be Harvard or bust (at Harvard, your odds are still 6%, or whatever they are, just like your odds of getting heads is 50% if you flip the coin just once). Instead you are trying to get into any selective college that will take you. Like the article says, keep flipping that coin, and you increase your chances of getting heads (or getting into an elite college) will increase. |
Anonymous
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I think it is true that it is not as difficult to get into a good college as is generally assumed these days. And it is true that your odds of getting accepted somewhere increase with the number of applications you send out.
But it is definitely NOT true that applying to college is like flipping a coin. When you flip a coin, each event is an independent one. What outcome (heads or tails) you get this time has absolutely nothing to do with what outcome you got last time. When you apply to an elite college, your outcome at one school is not independent of your outcome at another school. If you have the qualities that are likely to entice Harvard to accept you, you have the qualities that are likely to entice Yale and Princeton and MIT and Stanford, etc. to accept you. In fact, if I knew you were accepted at Harvard, I could improve my chances of correctly predicting what will happen at Yale and Princeton, etc. And if you have qualities that will never in a million years get you into Harvard, you aren't getting into Yale or Princeton or MIT either. The other thing to remember is that colleges are not equally selective. One of the reasons why your chances of getting accepted into good college increases if you apply to more schools is that you are increasing the range of selectivity of the schools you are applying to as your number of applications goes up. There are a limited number of schools that have super low acceptance rates. So if you only apply to 5 schools with <10% acceptance rates, your chances of getting into any one of them might be low, but if you apply to 20 schools, several of those schools are going to have acceptance rates much higher than 10%. You are increasing your odds not (only) because you are flipping your coin so much but because you are applying to some schools that take many more of their applicants. |
Anonymous
While I agree with your theme that a very competitive candidate - or one with the stuff to get into Harvard, for example - is more likely to get into MIT of Stanford than the average candidate, it is not true that they are dependent events. It is still like flipping a coin, but a coin that is weighted and in any single flip is more likely to come up heads. This speaks more to being realistic about where your credentials might have currency and setting your sights appropriately. Within a set of schools where you might be "qualified" your odds of acceptance within the set WILL generally go up the more schools that you apply to. This is very different than saying that an average student (a stretch in terms of qualification) is more likely to be accepted at HYPSM if he/she applies to all five. It is also important to recognize that selectivity is not necessarily correlated with quality of education or fit with a candidate's goals. |
Anonymous
| If you are the ideal candidate, you will get into many, but only attend one. I thought it was reassuring that 80% of students who applied to elite colleges got into at least one. As for Harvard, there are only 1630 or so spaces. |
Anonymous
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spray and pray my friend, spray and pray.
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Anonymous
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No matter how many times you flip a coin, the odds are always 50/50. OP's statement that "Like the article says, keep flipping that coin, and you increase your chances of getting heads (or getting into an elite college) will increase" is wrong.
Your chances don't increase or decrease each time. They are 50/50. |
Anonymous
Right. But over many flips, the odds are higher than 50-50 that at least one of the results will be heads. |
Anonymous
| The writer's definition of elite is not shared by many. Of course 80% of applications get into the top 113 colleges and universities. |
Anonymous
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy |
Anonymous
This is the wrong theorem. It only applies to past not predicting future. The statement 'the odds are higher of a single heads with many flips' is mathematically correct. |
Anonymous
+1. |
Anonymous
+2. And the point is, you only need one heads (= one acceptance at an elite college). https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090701001948AA1C5Hx |
Anonymous
| Many high schools place an upper limit of 8-10 applications on their students, so there's a practical limit to applying to lots of selective colleges. Applicants have to be more strategic and focus on a handful of colleges which really captivate them. |
Anonymous
?? Which high schools are these? |
Anonymous
| How does the high school get to control that? |