Anonymous wrote:a)recruited athlete plus good grades/scores
b) URM plus good grades/scoresc
c) legacy plus good grades/scores

OR
d) close to perfect grades/scores and something else remarkable.


If you're not a, b or c you need a stellar academic record plus something else that sets you apart from the crowd. Something that makes you remarkable.

There is also d) faculty child plus good grades/scores

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I have seen, legacy+cash or URM is the only way to go to HYPS. Cornell and Dartmouth don't seem to care as much about the URM representation.

Then you haven’t seen much. Unhooked white and Asian kids still make up the largest portion of every HYPS class.

"Unhooked white and Asian kids?" Probably not. In fact, it's pretty much statistically impossible.

For the class of 2021, 75.9% are white or Asian. But overall, 16% of the class are first generation, 8.7% are from rural areas, 17% are legacies. In past years, 20% were recruited athletes, and another 10% are walk on "soft" recruits, 10% are "Director's List" (big donors), and 1% are faculty children. Those categories add up to 82.7%. First Gen and Legacies are obviously mutually exclusive, and together those two are 33%. Even if you only allow for those two and assume the categories of hooks are evenly distributed amongst the races, you're down to 42.9% unhooked white & Asian kids (this is probably generous, based on the race of alumni historically, I have a suspicion that the legacy population is probably disproportionately white, but I don't care enough to look it up).

That's before you get to the other 41% of "hooks." In fact, the percentages of hooks (not even counting for race) adds up to 82.7%. The total non-white, non-Asian population admitted is 24.1%. Even allowing for some overlap between hooks (First gen/recruited athlete? Legacy/Director's List? Rural/first gen?), there's a minimal number of slots left for the "unhooked white and Asian" kid. There are obviously some. But no way is it the "largest portion."

https://features.thecrimson.com/2017/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/

https://veritasessays.org/college-admissions-blog/posts/types-of-students-admitted-to-harvard-requirements

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I have seen, legacy+cash or URM is the only way to go to HYPS. Cornell and Dartmouth don't seem to care as much about the URM representation.

Then you haven’t seen much. Unhooked white and Asian kids still make up the largest portion of every HYPS class.

but, outside of a very few feeder schools, most will be valedictorians who bring something else to the table, recruited athletes, or development projects. I don't think Harvard has many class filler admits

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They start with better punctuation than you

DP. No need to be rude. You could have just mentioned that "Ivies" is correct.

+1. Based upon the number of times some version of this response appears in this thread, it is clear that being a decent person is NOT a requirement.

Anonymous wrote:From what I have seen, legacy+cash or URM is the only way to go to HYPS. Cornell and Dartmouth don't seem to care as much about the URM representation.

Then you haven’t seen much. Unhooked white and Asian kids still make up the largest portion of every HYPS class.

From what I have seen, legacy+cash or URM is the only way to go to HYPS. Cornell and Dartmouth don't seem to care as much about the URM representation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

e) family has extraordinary wealth. (Such that they are capable of 7- or 8-digit donations.) Plus good grades/test scores.

You say this on every thread. It is not the wealth itself that gets the kid accepted, it is the wealth that gives the kid access to things that get them accepted. We know one family who decided their 5th grade DD should set up a charity in Malawi building school huts. So they invested in that and that's what she does every summer. It wasn't her idea, or her cash, but she did it and it will probably impress at least one admissions person.

yes, it's the wealth itself in many cases, look at the ex-prez and some in his fam

no, nobody will be impressed that her parents set up something and she went there every summer, no more than a kid that worked at mcdonald's every summer in high school

Try to take a more positive view of this. Maybe the girl going to Malawi every summer to build school huts has very wealthy parents that are actually doing a wonderful thing - teaching their child to give back to others and to see a different perspective on the world.

If that was the goal, they would have set it up in their names (not the 5th grader's name) and had her participate anyway. They were dumb thought, they should have waited until around 9th grade when someone might actually think it was the kid's idea.

Apply to lower level ivies like Cornell. That’s like WashU, Vandy, Rice, Northwestern, Boston University, Boston College... - except it’s an Ivy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a strong student and was able to check the Hispanic box

+1

Yup. Unless you are URM, forget it OP. Since you asked.

Yeah because there are no white kids at ivies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

e) family has extraordinary wealth. (Such that they are capable of 7- or 8-digit donations.) Plus good grades/test scores.

You say this on every thread. It is not the wealth itself that gets the kid accepted, it is the wealth that gives the kid access to things that get them accepted. We know one family who decided their 5th grade DD should set up a charity in Malawi building school huts. So they invested in that and that's what she does every summer. It wasn't her idea, or her cash, but she did it and it will probably impress at least one admissions person.

yes, it's the wealth itself in many cases, look at the ex-prez and some in his fam

no, nobody will be impressed that her parents set up something and she went there every summer, no more than a kid that worked at mcdonald's every summer in high school

Try to take a more positive view of this. Maybe the girl going to Malawi every summer to build school huts has very wealthy parents that are actually doing a wonderful thing - teaching their child to give back to others and to see a different perspective on the world.

Be an URM from a red state.

Six kids in my DD’s class went Ivy - 3 URM, 1 Valedictorian, 1 nationally accomplished at activity, 1 ED to Cornell & “normal”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a strong student and was able to check the Hispanic box

+1

Yup. Unless you are URM, forget it OP. Since you asked.

So what do you say to parents of unhooked kids who are admitted? How do you prove that claim in the face of contrary evidence?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

e) family has extraordinary wealth. (Such that they are capable of 7- or 8-digit donations.) Plus good grades/test scores.

You say this on every thread. It is not the wealth itself that gets the kid accepted, it is the wealth that gives the kid access to things that get them accepted. We know one family who decided their 5th grade DD should set up a charity in Malawi building school huts. So they invested in that and that's what she does every summer. It wasn't her idea, or her cash, but she did it and it will probably impress at least one admissions person.

yes, it's the wealth itself in many cases, look at the ex-prez and some in his fam

no, nobody will be impressed that her parents set up something and she went there every summer, no more than a kid that worked at mcdonald's every summer in high school

It's definitely the wealth in some cases.

You see this play out at the "Big3" (top) DC privates.
10 kids apply to Princeton or Yale or wherever. The one that gets in has a parent who makes $15 million/year despite having mediocre or no extracurriculars and inferior grades.

I have seen this play out SO many times at my kids' school.

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a strong student and was able to check the Hispanic box

+1

Yup. Unless you are URM, forget it OP. Since you asked.