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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DD entering freshman at HYP. No hooks - white UMC girl from northeast who is not an athlete or legacy and needs financial aid.  [b]Top 10% of her class[/b] - one of the top 3 publics in our state.  Grades not perfect but strong throughout and she took the full "challenging" courseload.  SAT strong but also not perfect, just at the average for her school. In general I think for most selective schools the stats piece is the first hoop to jump through, not what gets people in.  What really distinguished her was all the "holistic admissions" stuff - she dedicated herself to an interesting range of ECs and was able to tie them together in her app via the essays in interesting and thoughtful ways.  She was a bit of a unicorn in her school and that worked to her advantage. Her LORs were strong I believe, although I didn't read them I believe at least one of them was along the lines of "one of top students in my career" stuff. I don't know why she got in, but I would say that she demonstrated deep commitment to a few activities and interests in a way that came though as pretty authentic in her application.[/quote]

Does anyone who isn't at Princeton use HYP this way?  It seems like a way to pretend to not disclose a school while actually doing the exact opposite?  Because who gets into Harvard and doesn't just say Harvard? [/quote]

I actually thought Cornell, not HYP. HYPs take top 1-2% students. Cornell, top 10%. [/quote]

PP again - hmm this may be true at your kids' school.  Our school tends to have kids getting admitted to the most selective schools from across the top decile (and sometimes 2nd decile.) They report by decile only so I don't know where my kid or anybody else's kid fell in that range.  However, based on what I have gleaned from this experience I think that these parent boards tend to overestimate the importance of perfect stats (I believe this is what you mean by the top 1-2%.)  These schools turn away kids with perfect GPA/SATs all the time, we know this.  The school my daughter is going to turned down our valedictorian the year before.  The stats are just the starting point and beyond a certain point of high achievement there's a diminishing rate of return on going for perfect. My understanding is that they much prefer the kid with strong but slightly less than perfect stats who has shown themselves to be a passionate and committed learner.  When I think of the kids I know who have gone to the Ivies, MIT, etc etc that is what they have in common.[/quote]

MIT is a bit different from Ivies, though, IMO. They are looking for a more specific skill set and commitment to STEM. [/quote]

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