Anonymous wrote:I went to an Ivy. Half of my class came from private school.
Consider the number of students from private schools vs the number of students from public schools. Consider the number of high schools of both types and calculate the odds of admission to any given college.
Even if they take 20% fewer private students, your odds are still much improved.
I fed this to ChatGPT:
At 50%
Odds of Admission for Private School Students: Approximately 1 in 3,000.
Odds of Admission for Public School Students: Approximately 1 in 27,000.
At 30%
Odds of Admission for Private School Students: Approximately 1 in 5,000.
Odds of Admission for Public School Students: Approximately 1 in 19,286.
Granted there are probably more college bound students from a private school than a random public school, if we assume only 30% of public students apply, and they admit 30% of any given class from private schools, then the odds are about even.
But I don’t think there is any realistic scenario where going private has worse odds.
It doesn't work like this. Admission is not random. The odds you are stating are meaningless.
The quality of the application matters. This is why the same kid gets into multiple top schools while another kid gets zero.