To Get into the Ivy League, “Extraordinary” Isn’t Always Enough These Days
wsj.com
wsj.com
"See, I have this history of anxiety and depression and perfectionism, and I desperately need for you to understand that some of my grades from when I was 14 don't define me"
I 100% guarantee each of those institutions admitted white non-donor non-legacy students with Bs on their transcript.
It's also a red flag to apply to all the Ivies. They're wildly different institutions, that offer different strengths, weaknesses, personalities, and development opportunities. The only real reason to apply to all of them is that you don't know what you want out of any of them.
That said, my heart goes out to this poor kid. Some douche canoe thought a WSJ profile of a strong student with unsuccessful applications would help her or something? I'm glad to be on the other side of college admissions. Elite institutions are more of a crapshoot than ever, and it's inevitable that some poor schmucks are going to catch a bad hop, especially if they didn't diversify their application pool.
Also, doesn't her class rank auto-qualify for UT Austin? Her fall-back is one of the best universities in the world? She started an accounting club, and she got default admission into the world's top-ranked accounting program? Lol. This is such a non-story.
Aaaaalso, because this WSJ nonsense is apparently triggering: she's some math prodigy, but she doesn't understand how percentiles work? "23rd out of 668, or in the third percentile, she said"
I don't think this is necessarily correct; or, at least, your justification seems incomplete.
Of course if someone could choose between all the Ivies, there would be a single school that best suits them and should be chosen. However, there are certain applicant profiles where the acceptance variance is so high that it becomes completely rational to apply to all Ivies (or at least most of them). Anectodally, the cultured between the Ivies is homogenizing anyway and most students who actually attend have also applied to the other Ivies.
The question you have to answer in an application is why this school. If your answer is "I just want to go to an Ivy", each school gets to say "Ok, neat. Go to a different one." And if your answer is "I need to get in to an Ivy to validate myself", bless you sweet sweet heart. You answered honestly, but incorrectly.
It's like telling Columbia "I want to attend Columbia because I really want to go to college in NYC." Laugh, but it happens all the time. Their answer, of course, is "Ok, you have more than a hundred other options. Go there instead."
Give a better answer to the question. Even if the culture is homogenizing, pander to the audience and tell them things that they uniquely offer. Unless you've won the equivalent of the Siemens Competition or you have letters of recommendation from Fields Medalists, you've got to sell yourself to them.
Applying to multiple Ivy and other top-ranked schools is fairly common. "Business" isn't a super specialized academic area, so I doubt any of the top schools are going to be that much better or worse than the others.
UT Austin has competitive admissions for certain majors, regardless of automatic admission to the school. The article notes that she only got accepted to the school, not her preferred major.
In the end, I think the biggest mistake is setting her sights too high. She should have known that she could have been rejected from most of these schools, and she could have applied to more schools on a similar level as UT Austin.
Probably, but that's a fallacy. The important question is how many relative to others with similar academics. I think thanks to a lawsuit [1], we have some data on that for Harvard.
Here's the relevant chart by the Economist: [2]. I think it corroborates what the article's anecdote suggests.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions...
[2]: https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/print-e...
It's a test case to blow up affirmative action and roll back the protections put in place during the Civil Rights Era. We know this because it's being spearheaded by Edward Bloom, who also organized Shelby vs. Holder, which sucessfully gutted the Civil Rights Act.
Finally, at a population level, it is less remarkable for a rich student to be a top decile performer, because they have far fewer obligations to their household. They don't have to work extra jobs or drive their parents to doctor's appointments. They're likely to live much closer to their schools, and those schools have been dramatically better funded.
"But what about the poor white kids" you say? The AEI isn't looking out for them either. They might have a slightly harder time getting into Harvard, but within rounding error, ZERO poor white kids go to the Ivies. The vast majority go to public state universities, which are the real target of this lawsuit.
> ranked 23rd out of 668
students at a mediocre public high school [1].
[1]https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/texas/dis...
First mistake, if you want to get into an elite university, you need to be Number 1 because the other zillion applicants sure as hell are.
Second (big) mistake: didn't play a sport. Ivies need to fill Title IX slots, and not taking advantage of that is foolish when entry is so competitive. In addition, studies have repeatedly shown that colleges will bend the admission criteria if you are actively good at playing a sport at collegiate level.
Third (huge) mistake: trying to go in for "business" as a major. Had she chosen to come for a STEM field, she probably would have been admitted to at least one of those Ivies. And then she could have transferred to "business".
This is someone who didn't get very good (if any) advice on how to get into an Ivy.
Edit: there were also only a handful of chemistry majors as pre-meds avoided it like the plague as it required 4 more nasty chem courses to graduate. There were a couple of chem/chemE double majors that screwed up the curve.