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Hi, Greetings!
 Applications increased across all campuses in the country. Harvard and Stanford continued to lead the pack by drawing over 30,000 applicants respectively. Life sciences, computer science, psychology, business, and economics continue to make the largest pools.
All colleges are looking for a diverse student body, and not just in the traditional definition of Intel prize winners. Candidates with perfect test scores are turned away in favor of those with lower scores because of other, more subjective attributes. Just like Harvard Dean William Fitzsimmons put it, "small differences of 50 or 100 points or more have no significant effect on admissions decisions. Standardized tests are most useful to us in the decision-making process when they are extremely high or low-and even then many other factors come into play."
This year, more than ever, diversity goes beyond awards, gender, race, and ethnic background. It includes a diversity of interest, perspectives, and life experiences. Although it is not clear whether this marks the beginning of a trend, the low admit rate of colleges highlights the competitive nature of undergraduate admissions, in which the majority of candidates nationwide are turned away including many students with straight A's and rigorous courses.
Despite the elite colleges' claim that everyone has a chance, students with a 3.0 GPA are not going to make it. Good grades are critical for success. Students with "A's" are favored. If they miss one train/college, they may still catch another one later. Students with "B's" are in the mushy middle. If they don't jump onto a college in the early round, they find it extremely hard to jump onto another one during regular admissions. Students with "C's" are not in the ballpark (despite the sometimes positive connotations associated with C's, such as "compassion.") Admission officers say that they consider more than simply test scores and objective evaluations of applicants, but the truth is - numbers still matter.
Given the larger pool of applicants, it seems that none of the top schools are considering increasing the size of their student bodies. All of them will continue to keep the student body small, elite, and selective. As the leading universities in the country continue to engage in the competition to harvest the most applications and the lowest acceptance rate, the competition among students will continue to be throat-cutting.
 | | Which one will you pick? |
Without further ado, here are the results:
Colleges That Accepted At Least Three of IvyClimbing Students
Brown, 3
Caltech, 3
Columbia, 4 (2 college, 2 SEAS)
Cornell, 3
Dartmouth, 8
Duke, 4
Harvard, 3
MIT, 9
Penn, 3
Princeton, 7
Rice, 4
Stanford, 6
University of Chicago, 6
Washington University in St. Louis, 6
Yale, 4
In three students' cases, I do not think our services have made significant differences. As a counselor, there is no experience quite so humbling as the inevitable less than perfect results come in. For this reason, I feel duty-bound to do everything right the second time.
Wan Chen
College Admissions Counselor
www.IvyClimbing.com |
