Not bad odds! Cool, my 3.5 1430 kid will apply to all the Ivies! And here we thought he had zero chance.

and same for math or physics / non eng stem

it’s false. you damn well better think a yale econ major might also be applying to MiT

Sorry to go off topic, but I find it kind of mysterious when people say "Yale likes one type of student and MIT likes another." While I can definitely see there is a difference between schools like MIT, Caltech, and Carnegie Mellon on the one hand, I am not sure I understand what the difference is between Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc from looking at their websites. Aren't these all supposed to solid and well rounded liberal arts schools? (Though you can even get a great degree in the humanities at MIT, so I hear). And wouldn't their campuses and social scenes be awfully dull if they each admitted only one type of student?

This would only be true if each school's admission process was entirely random.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Except that's not how it works, because each of those independent events is dependent on mostly the same factors.

This can't be true. JHU and Cornell are looking for different students, so are MIT and Yale.
Your reasoning reduces college admission to simple stats such as test score and gpa. However, that is not how it works!

OP's reasoning is falling into that trap, not this PP. Negative correlation is not zero correlation.

If Yale doesn't like what MIT likes, the student who might get into MIT, will gain almost nothing applying to Yale.

If Yale and Cornell like nearly the same thing, the student who applies to both is likely to get the same result from both applications.

Anonymous wrote:And that PP. You need a remedial math class.

The OP's math, under the conditions stated, is correct, of course.

While I don’t think this is true, I’ve seen so many kids rejected from HYP and accepted by a different HYP. Don’t apply to one or two if you’re that competitive

But they're all so different, I don't know any kid in real life who would be happy at attending any of them in equal measure. They'd still either be happy or disappointed with their acceptance.

I can't relate, OP. My kids pick the places where they'd be happy to go (reaches, targets and safeties). And then they pick their preferred acceptance.

Anonymous wrote:Except that's not how it works, because each of those independent events is dependent on mostly the same factors.

This can't be true. JHU and Cornell are looking for different students, so are MIT and Yale.
Your reasoning reduces college admission to simple stats such as test score and gpa. However, that is not how it works!

These events are highly dependent.

That is true -- if the colleges were equally likely to accept each applicant, and they were just selecting by chance.

It may seem that way, but that's not how it works, unfortunately!

Except that's not how it works, because each of those independent events is dependent on mostly the same factors.

And that PP. You need a remedial math class.

Assuming they are all independent separate events, the probability of receiving at least one acceptance is 33% if you apply to 10 colleges each with 4% admit rate.