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We've heard many times that the Ivies (and Stanford and MIT and Duke) are darned picky and it's all a crapshoot.

But do these schools each have a UNIQUE bias when they take applicants?

I've heard that Stanford loves smart atheletes, Princeton goes for the conservative thinkers, Brown goes for the offbeat geniuses, and Harvard shoots for the kid who was 1st at the Physics Olympiad.

By Bft (Bft) on Friday, August 29, 2003 - 12:43 am: Edit

I think they are looking for people who will being a good fit for their school. So being a conservative at Princeton or being an offbeat person at Brown certainly helps. If you are the kind of person they can imagine on campus you are probably a student they want to fill their seat.

By Argus (Argus) on Friday, August 29, 2003 - 01:52 am: Edit

Collegeguy, I think you have the unique biases pegged pretty well for each school. The one revision I'd make is that certain schools show a tendency to admit certain kinds of applicants, while other schools demonstrate a tendency to attract certain kinds of applicants. There is a subtle difference between the two.

For example, it's not clear to me whether Princeton actively seeks conservative thinkers in the admission process - or whether the University itself merely attracts that kind of student.

That said, my experience is that:

MIT takes top raw science/math talent over everything else

Harvard looks for people with leadership potential

Brown looks for demonstrated initiative and the "different drummer"

Columbia looks for bookish intellectuals

Stanford likes student-athletes


...and the others aren't as clear to me.


PS.This would be a good question to pose to the CC board administrators since they are college counselors, and thus probably have experience with identifying such admission trends.

By Collegeguy (Collegeguy) on Friday, August 29, 2003 - 02:10 am: Edit

how do you post to the admins?

By Folk_Hero (Folk_Hero) on Saturday, August 30, 2003 - 03:38 pm: Edit

Interesting question...

By Rubenizm (Rubenizm) on Saturday, August 30, 2003 - 05:52 pm: Edit

make a thread and title it "To Moderator".

By Folk_Hero (Folk_Hero) on Saturday, August 30, 2003 - 10:31 pm: Edit

I mean about their specific preferences...

By Collegeguy (Collegeguy) on Sunday, August 31, 2003 - 02:20 pm: Edit

I guess why I asked this question is because I'm so disillusioned.

People on this board post about people with

1600 SAT I perfect sat IIs
4.0 gpa
AMAZING extracurricualrs (intel and stuff)
Stellar essays
godly recs

who get rejected from stanford and harvard.

what ARE they looking for? And specifically what are EACH of them looking for?

By Pookdogg (Pookdogg) on Sunday, August 31, 2003 - 04:24 pm: Edit

Remember, the Ivy League doesn't admit/reject just to act as a judge, doling out accolades and condemnations just to play god. They have goals for what kind of student body they want, and that changes from year to year.

And Collegeguy: Those people who have those stats (1600/2400/4.0) with AMAZING ECs probably arent really that truthful. Now, I'm not saying that they're lying, but what classifies a "stellar essay" or "amazing recommendations"? More often than not, they are assuming that the essays they WILL write and the recs they WILL receive will be excellent, but that might not be the case. That is why they get thin envelopes from HYPS.

That being said, I have noticed that certain people do get into certain schools.

Harvard prefers well-lopsided (if there is such a thing) people, whereas Princeton prefers the extremely well-balanced folk. Yale tends to look for future leaders (the Bushes, etc).

By Smiley (Smiley) on Sunday, August 31, 2003 - 07:33 pm: Edit

Use "Ask the Dean" (off the home page)