Reply to Atlantic piece: "My Daughter's Homework is Killing Me"

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Atlantic piece: "My Daughter's Homework is Killing Me""

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Mathematically, [b]all we can say [/b]is that golden tickets have much better acceptance rates than general applicants. The first PP is right. But, without a whole lot more information, like what percent of the original applicant pool of 100 kids have golden tickets, [b]we cannot say what the relative acceptance rates are [/b]between golden tickets and general applicants.

But let's do an example. It might also be instructive for admissions to DC area private schools--where some families have golden tickets in the form of siblings, great wealth, or great political jobs.

Let's say the school has 35,000 applicants for 2,100 spots (which makes for a 6% acceptance rate, and isn't far from reality for some of these schools, but I'm using round numbers).  Let's say that 25% of applicant pool have golden tickets (the golden ticket applicant pool is 8750 kids) and 75% are general applicants (the applicant pool of regular kids is 26,250). (I'm making these ratios up, but you get the point.) Of these 2100 kids who are accepted, earlier posters have been assuming that half (1,050 kids) will be golden tickets and the other half (1,050 kids) of accepted kids will be from the regular applicant pool.  So what are the relative acceptance rates for these two pools of kids?
o acceptance rate for golden tickets = 1,050/8,750 = 12%
o acceptance rate for regular kids = 1,050/26,250 = 4%
o overall acceptance rate = accepted kids / total applicant pool = (1050 golden tickets + 1050 regular acceptance pool) / (8,750 + 26,250) = 2,100 / 35,000 = 6%

So yes, as the original PP said, golden tickets face better than average acceptance rates to the Ivies (12% acceptance rate, versus the overall acceptance rate of 6%). And regular applicant kids face lower than average acceptance odds at the Ivies (4% acceptance rate versus the overall acceptance rate of 6%).

Yes I'm a nerd, but I hope this helps. And before some of you launch the usual charges of sour grapes, my kid was a golden ticket to an ivy for one of the arts. FWIW, the athletic recruits that I know who are going to this same Ivy are from TJ and the Blair magnet - so they're hardly academic slouches.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics