Acceptance History for Hooked vs Non-Hooked at top private school

[Anonymous]

Found this post on an online thread and thought it'd be an interesting share here. In a brief recap, they found acceptance and GPA data at a top private HS in California (Harvard Westlake) where the average SAT is above a 700 per section and more than half of the 290 students in the senior class go to top 25 universities. Interestingly, the data was divided between hooked (termed distinction students, labeled as legacies and recruited athletes) and non-hooked students, so the creator calculated the acceptance rates and GPA for each group. Results below for top schools with 25+ applicants.



The basic finding? These hooked students not only get in at much higher rates, but they also have lower GPAs. Considerably lower in some cases.

[Anonymous]

If anyone wants to look at the numbers across a ton of colleges, they're at the bottom of this document: http://students.hw.com/Portals/44/Handbook2018.pdf

[Anonymous]

At our private in the NE, where kids graduate highest, high and distinction - the kids who graduated without even a distinction and who basically partied through high school got into colleges below mostly due to $$$$, athlete or URM:

Harvard - 1 "Z" list
Yale - 2 due to sports and had summer tutoring
Princeton -1 URM
Duke -2 due to $$$$$
Cornell - 1 due to legacy; kids with higher stats rejected
UPenn - Wharton! - 1
And on and on....and apparently it doesn't stop at the college gates if you read the article about Harvard making sure these kids get As!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If anyone wants to look at the numbers across a ton of colleges, they're at the bottom of this document: http://students.hw.com/Portals/44/Handbook2018.pdf

Hmm, very interesting. They note legacy and athlete and etc. I wonder if the "etc." is URM, they just don't want to put that in writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Found this post on an online thread and thought it'd be an interesting share here. In a brief recap, they found acceptance and GPA data at a top private HS in California (Harvard Westlake) where the average SAT is above a 700 per section and more than half of the 290 students in the senior class go to top 25 universities. Interestingly, the data was divided between hooked (termed distinction students, labeled as legacies and recruited athletes) and non-hooked students, so the creator calculated the acceptance rates and GPA for each group. Results below for top schools with 25+ applicants.



The basic finding? These hooked students not only get in at much higher rates, but they also have lower GPAs. Considerably lower in some cases.

I'd really like to see that broken out by athlete and "other" hooks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If anyone wants to look at the numbers across a ton of colleges, they're at the bottom of this document: http://students.hw.com/Portals/44/Handbook2018.pdf

Hmm, very interesting. They note legacy and athlete and etc. I wonder if the "etc." is URM, they just don't want to put that in writing.

I doubt there were many. Only 13% of students at HWS were URM- 69% are white and 18% are Asian. 60% participate in athletics. 80% pay the full cost of nearly 40K, which is as expensive as the tuition at a top private school (HWS is a day school, not a boarding school). HWS is also considered the best private school in California, so you can bet that many of the students had legacy status.

The numbers feel more reflective of recruited athletes and legacy students than any other group.

[Anonymous]

That is really interesting. Looks like Georgetown, Rice, and Emory have the most favorable relative outcomes for the unhooked schools. It would be great to have this kind of data for other schools in different regions to see if the pattern is consistent.

[Anonymous]

Is there data available over several years? I’d be interested in seeing the long term trends.

[Anonymous]

Curious about the cutoff SAT scores for athletes. I know some have been told they had a score cut off, even though no one speaks it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If anyone wants to look at the numbers across a ton of colleges, they're at the bottom of this document: http://students.hw.com/Portals/44/Handbook2018.pdf

Hmm, very interesting. They note legacy and athlete and etc. I wonder if the "etc." is URM, they just don't want to put that in writing.

I doubt there were many. Only 13% of students at HWS were URM- 69% are white and 18% are Asian. 60% participate in athletics. 80% pay the full cost of nearly 40K, which is as expensive as the tuition at a top private school (HWS is a day school, not a boarding school). HWS is also considered the best private school in California, so you can bet that many of the students had legacy status.

The numbers feel more reflective of recruited athletes and legacy students than any other group.

It would be very interesting to see the breakdown, but I'd guess they couldn't do that and maintain anonymity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there data available over several years? I’d be interested in seeing the long term trends.

This is 3 year data (2014-2016). You can see all of the schools on the second link.

[Anonymous]

I commend Harvard westlake for releasing this data

See - colleges could release the cross tabs of all this data thereby helping kids out but they won’t because they are selfish and don’t behave in a way best supportive of kids

[Anonymous]

Very depressing. So an intellectual, academically oriented kid who does well in school and has other interests but isn't athletic or connected or rich is out of luck.

[Anonymous]

Jhu gives higher weight to hooks than gtown?

[Anonymous]

The lac’s are egregious. Shame

Columbia pretty decent for ivy - the antithesis of princeton