Every year, more than/kloc-0.00 million American high school graduates apply for Ivy League schools, striving for about 25,000 places (the actual enrollment is 50% to 60% of this figure). What kind of people apply? What kind of people are admitted? "Take precautions", how and when should senior three students prepare for this final sprint? Let's introduce it in as much detail as possible.
When you apply to an American university, you will first be asked whether to join the early decision-making program. "Early decision" means that the applicant applies in advance (about 165438+ 10 month in the first year) and the university makes a decision in advance (about 65438+mid-February). Once admitted, it means that you can't choose another school and you must study in this school.
There is also an "early action" plan, which is similar to the "early decision" plan, but after being admitted, you can also choose other schools.
What are the advantages of the "early decision" plan? Students who participate in this program may have a 50% chance of being admitted than those who apply normally. For example, the admission rate of Dartmouth University's "early decision" project in the 1990s was over 30%, while the admission rate of normal enrollment was less than 20%. In Ivy League schools, students who participate in the "early decision" program account for one-third to half of the total enrollment.
What kind of students participate in the "decide in advance" program? Most people's scores are the average of the admission lines of the schools they apply for, and they all come from wealthy white families. Students with poor grades and good grades are generally reluctant to participate in this plan. The primary concern of ethnic minorities (blacks, Hispanics) and students with poor family economic conditions is the financial assistance given to them by the school. The annual tuition of Ivy League schools is more than $20,000, plus accommodation and pocket money of about 1 10,000, which is beyond the affordability of ordinary American families. Almost more than 90% students receive various financial aid from the school. Some people call these subsidies discounts on the official price of tuition fees. Generally speaking, there are not many students who pay tuition fees according to the clearly marked price, but few people don't pay tuition fees at all. The amount of financial aid received from the admitted schools is mainly based on the financial situation of the students' families. Students from famous private schools get good grades, so there are few scholarships awarded according to their academic performance. Students who participate in the "decide in advance" program have no choice if they are not satisfied with the funding. Therefore, less affluent students are reluctant to take part in this project. Almost every school says that how much funding you will get has nothing to do with whether you participate in this project or not, but you have no choice but to lose the bargaining chip and naively hope that the other party will be "lazy", and the consequences are only known to you. On the other hand, students with particularly good grades have almost no problem where they want to go, and there is no need to tie their hands and feet prematurely.
If you participate in the "decide in advance" program, the result will either be accepted, that is, if there are no accidents, you must enter school next fall, or you will be postponed, that is, your conditions are not enough. The school will put your application into the normal admission channel and make a decision next year. Others were rejected because of their poor level. Students admitted at this stage, because they still have half a year's high school study time, may be disqualified if their high school grades suddenly drop or they violate the law and discipline within half a year.
The students who have been delayed are not optimistic either. First, he didn't know whether he was "delayed by courtesy" or "delayed by reality". "Polite procrastination" means that the standard exam results are not ideal. Although I will definitely not be admitted, I will give face and will not refuse immediately. "Realistic delay" is a student in ambiguity. One is to compare with most applicants, and the other is to see if your grades are better after this development. Generally speaking, if your level has not improved significantly, your chances are not great.
There is no unified national college entrance examination in the United States. Scholistic Assessment Test (SAT), sponsored by Educational Testing Service, is used by most universities as a standard to compare different regions, different high schools and different scoring systems. SAT is divided into two parts, one is a general part, including mathematics and English, called SATI；; Others are single-subject exams, including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, foreign languages (including Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish) and so on. , collectively referred to as SAT Ⅱ Ⅱ. SAT I scores 800 in mathematics and 800 in English (minimum score is 200), so the full score is 1600 (note: this is the SAT I test form before 2005); The SAT score is 800. The score of SAT is relative, and the median is 500 before 1995. This standard of 500 points was set by 194 1. That year, there were 1 10,000 students in private high schools in the United States taking the SAT with an average score of 500. So if your SAT Ⅰ I score is 5 10 in English and 490 in math, it means that more than half of people are not as good at English as you, but better at math. 1995, more than 2 million high school students in the United States took the SAT Ⅰ I exam, which was still measured by this standard more than 50 years ago. This year's national intermediate scores are: English: 428; Math: 482. More than 70% of the candidates' English scores are below 500. In addition to getting full marks for answering all the questions correctly, a wrong question may lower your score by 30 points. In addition, there are not a few people with scores below 200. 1995, the middle score of SATⅰI III was redefined as 500 according to the scores of candidates in that year, that is to say, the original score of English 428 was changed from 1996 to 500. Similarly, math 482 became 500. In this way, the score distribution tends to be reasonable, but it also generally improves the score. Even if you make two or three mistakes, you may get full marks. Before 1995, there were only twenty or thirty people in the world who got double full marks (1600) on the SAT Ⅰ I every year. But by 1996, there were 545 people in the United States alone who got double full marks on the SAT Ⅰ Ⅰ. This year, 365 people who applied to Harvard got this score (Harvard only accepted 45% of them).
SAT (and a smaller ACT) is the only thing that American universities can get to compare the scores of students from different regions and schools, so it plays a very important role in admission or not. Although the SAT is criticized as being designed to adapt to whites (or Asians) and unfair to black and Hispanic students, American universities have repeatedly told you in public that the SAT score plays little role in the admission process, and the most important thing is high school grades, etc., but you should never be naive to believe it. Generally speaking (at least for admissions officers in most universities), SAT I scores indicate students' intelligence level, while SAT II scores depend on how students study. If a student gets straight A's in high school physics class, but only gets 550 points in the SATⅱⅱ II physics exam, the simplest inference is that his school score is inflated, or the student is not competitive. No matter how you interpret it, it is not good for him.
1997 the relationship between Georgetown university students' enrollment and SAT I scores
English fraction admission rate Mathematics fraction admission rate
1050 500-599 250-299 100- 149 50-54
1 80 80 79 76 73
2 80 79 77 74 7 1
3 79 77 75 72 68
4 79 76 73 70 66
5 78 75 72 68 64
6 78 74 7 1 67 63
7 77 73 70 66 62
8 77 73 69 66 6 1
9 76 72 69 65 60
10 76 7 1 68 63 58
25 72 67 63 57 49
50 69 63 59 5 1 27
If your graduating class has 100 students, your ranking is the third, and your "conversion ranking score" is 72. Add with the first two scores: AI=75+65+72=2 12. Just enough for Dartmouth. Although class ranking is important, it cannot be absolute. 1995 1543 high school graduates applied for Princeton university. Among them, less than one third (495 people) were admitted. In some famous private high schools, about 30% graduates enter the Ivy League. Among the students who applied to Georgetown University from 65438 to 0997, the admission rates of the top three high schools were 62%, 48% and 43% respectively.
If you read this and think, "Ah, that's the same", then you are wrong. AI refers to "athlete index" (or "academic index"), which was originally used for athletes. For athletes, the whole league uses this index. But Dartmouth extended it to all students. What tricks do other Ivy League schools use for non-athlete students? They use the academic ranking system. "Academic Ranking System" finally summarizes all the information of applicants into a score: "numerator" means academic ranking, "denominator" means extracurricular activities and personal moral ranking, and there is no mathematical relationship between them. The range of numbers varies from school to school. Harvard is 1-6( 1 expensive), Brown is 1-6, but 6 is expensive, and the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth College are 1-9, 9 high. Princeton:1-5; Yale: 1-4, less is more expensive. Columbia University, Georgetown, MIT: 1-5. You don't need numbers. 1998, among 72% freshmen admitted to Princeton, the "academic ranking" was 1 or 2.
Does "academic ranking" have anything to do with AI? Yes Look at the table below.
"Academic ranking" only represents academics and is a "molecule"; The denominator will be discussed below.
So, if your "academic ranking" is below 3, unless you have some special "relationships", please give up the idea of getting into an Ivy League. If your ranking is above 8, then you are really "relieved" and just wait for the good news. Ranks 6 and 7 are also lucky, and there will always be more places for you to apply for. Exactly: I don't have a grandfather here, but I have my own place to raise him.
The relationship between Dartmouth 1996 freshmen's admission rate and different indexes.
Admission rate of "academic ranking" artificial intelligence applicants
1 229 2.2% 94%
What about the fourth and fifth? Be slaughtered and resigned to fate? Another introduction.
As the saying goes, man proposes, God disposes. There is another thing to say: do your best and leave it to fate. Do your best first. This is also the function of denominator. Although the "denominator" only accounts for a quarter of the enrollment, its importance varies from person to person, especially for those who rank 4 or 5, which is enough to tilt the balance. You must use
Try your best to let the admissions officer know your versatility. Have you ever been the president of the Student Union (leadership and organizational skills)? Have you ever participated in sports competitions and ranked in arts and sciences competitions (cultural and sports abilities)? Have you published research papers, poems and novels in famous newspapers? In addition, have you ever been a social volunteer, helping the weak and helping the poor (kind-hearted, responsible for society); Good people, team spirit and manners mentioned in the recommendation letter? Whether there have been any hardships in the process of growing up (indicating your perseverance and enterprising spirit), and so on.
Besides, you can take more difficult exams. In the United States, high school students can take college courses and get college credits after passing the unified examination. Depending on the number of people, you can graduate early. This kind of exam is called advanced preparation (AP). AP includes computing, biology, chemistry, physics, history, English, French, Latin and so on. The highest score is 5. It will be of great help to you if you get 4 or 5 points in several AP exams. First, it shows that the depth of your study is different from others, and a simple exam can't reveal your true level. This is called "making yourself stand out from the crowd"; Second, it also shows your initiative in learning. Although some of these courses are offered in high schools, they are all optional courses, and the difficulty is the biggest. Don't you take difficult courses, that is, challenge your ability and pursue knowledge? 196 American 58 1554 high school graduates took the 92 160 1 AP exam. And 40 years ago, these two numbers were 1229 and 2 199 respectively.
So, what is the admission process? Let's try to take a walk. Suppose it is July and August, and you are one year away from graduating from high school, then you should go to the library to find information and roughly choose the university you want to go to. If the library and other aspects can't help, then spend tens of dollars to buy a book about American universities. Of course, the best way is to visit online. In short, the information should be complete, and the more complete the better. Suppose you feel good about yourself and go to the best private university in America. Then you should probably choose these schools introduced in this book, plus some liberal arts colleges, such as Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore College and so on. The total number should not exceed 50 to avoid being dazzled; And not less than ten, so as not to choose a wide range. Twenty schools are more suitable. Then, you should write to the admissions offices of these universities and ask them to send you letters of introduction, application forms and financial aid forms. About a month after the information comes out, you will start to receive replies. Some schools will put all the information in one bag, and some will send you a form first. Other schools, such as MIT, will ask you to pay a few dollars and then send you information. In short, you will have about a dozen school materials a month. If you send 20 letters.
The next step is a more difficult choice: choose three to five schools to formally apply. Of course, you can apply to many schools, but it is unrealistic. First, you have to pay the application fee, ranging from $30 to $50. And "ten thousand buildings, one bed", you can only go to one school in the end. Of course, some schools can reduce the application fee according to your family income (such as Dartmouth), but this is not a common practice. Second, applying for a school requires a lot of information, such as high school transcripts, letters of recommendation, and standard test scores (SAT). ), especially the latter, and only send your scores to three schools for free. Although high school transcripts and letters of recommendation can be copied indefinitely, large fonts and signatures must be original.
Well, you chose Princeton, Datts and Cornell, and the admission rates were around 10%, 20% and 30% respectively. Generally speaking, students admitted to Dartmouth can also be admitted to other Ivy League schools (except Harvard and Princeton). Students rejected by Datts will never be admitted to Harvard or Princeton, nor will they be admitted to Yale, Brown or Columbia University. It is possible that Pennsylvania and Dell University will recruit them.
You start filling out the application form. Dartmouth's application form has five forms, from form 1 to form 5. Form 1 and Form 2 are to be completed by the applicant; Table 3 is a grade report, which is filled out by your high school; Table 4 * * * Three copies, two are letters of recommendation from teachers and one from colleagues; Table 5 is the interim report of senior high school graduation grade, which will be filled in and sent by the school before February 15 of the following year.
Dartmouth's application form 1 mainly contains some background information: name, address, social security number, where brothers and sisters study, parents' occupation and education level, etc. Table 2 is where the applicant takes the initiative to play. You need to answer several questions, such as: "What is your favorite subject and why?" "Briefly describe your achievements and honors" and "Ask a question to other applicants and then answer it yourself". For the applicant, the most important thing is Table 2, because it is a place where you can give full play to yourself, from which you can see your ambition, talent, writing level, attitude towards life and so on. Table 1, table 3 and table 5 all belong to "hardware", and the result is basically a foregone conclusion, but table 4 is very malleable. The references' understanding of you, your likes and dislikes, and your understanding of the requirements of letters of recommendation can all play an important role. As the saying goes, salt is not salty, but vinegar is sour; Some people say that there are more than failures.
Generally speaking, each applicant will eventually send five or six letters directly or indirectly to the applying school: my application form, the form filled out by the school, two letters of recommendation (which must be sent separately), standard test transcripts, etc. American students may also have interview comments. It is important to indicate your name or the number assigned to you on each shipment. This point cannot be overemphasized. Imagine that in a few months, the admissions office will receive 50,000 to 60,000 such letters, and one of them will be misplaced, which will delay your time and no one will be responsible for you.
In the admission office, letters are opened, marked with the date of receipt, and then arranged alphabetically on a big table. These data are input into the computer. Everyone will have two files: one in the computer and the other in the physical letter. At this time, your statistics and indicators will be calculated and printed on a piece of paper. Before that, your information was equivalent to being processed by a machine; Then real people appeared.
First, the physical files are handed over to officials in charge of specific fields. This official has a personal experience of the education level and high school quality in his area. American elite schools all hope that their students come from 50 states in the United States and from more than 100 countries in the world, although there are only one or two representatives in some areas. This is geographical diversity. There are also names such as ethnic diversity and class diversity. Every autumn, local officials will visit their departments for about a month. First, they will know about the school. Second, they will meet their alumni. Third, they will introduce their school to high school students, teachers and parents. After reading your file, the district official summed up your information in a few sentences and compared it with other students in his area. Finally, he will give you a "ranking", including "numerator" (academic) and "denominator" (extracurricular, personality). This is the so-called "first reading".
After the "first reading", officials may take action to rank students with good grades: students with good grades (academic rankings 8 and 9) may be recommended for "first reading admission" and submit the materials to the director of the admissions office. After reading the file, if the director agrees to recommend it, he will write a green letter "A" on it to show his acceptance. This file has completed the journey, just waiting for the admission notice. If the director does not agree to the "first reading admission", the file will return to the original system and wait for the "second reading". Similarly, students with academic rankings of 1 and 2 will be recommended by district officials as "rejected on first reading", which will be decided by the director. "Rejection on first reading" means that the director wrote a letter "R" on the file with a red pen, indicating rejection. The "first reading" of the rejected document has also completed the journey, waiting for the rejection letter. Dartmouth College accounts for about 5% of the total number of applicants each year, and about 20% of them are rejected.
After finishing and enriching (new scores, recommended materials, etc. ), documents that pass the first reading will enter the second reading. Then, mark A (admission), R (rejection), or P (possibility). If both officials give it to R, the document will be sent to the assistant director for decision. If both officials give A, the document will be sent to the director for approval; If two officials have different opinions or both suggest "P", the document will also be in the hands of the director, who will vote again. Of the three tickets, two A's or two R's usually mean admission and rejection, and the rest will be discussed again by a committee composed of several people to make a final decision.
So besides in-class and out-of-class grades, what other factors can affect your chances of admission? If your answer is "money", how does money work?
The first is sports. In American universities, football and basketball are so-called "money-making sports". Although it is extremely unlikely that an Ivy League team will appear on TV, the income from tickets and alumni donations is directly proportional to the performance of the team. The reason why the Ivy League team has fallen from the dominant position at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20 th century to the third-and fourth-rate level today is mainly because the Ivy League does not provide scholarships for athletes. As a result, excellent athletes went to public universities with deep pockets and regarded sports as equal or even higher than teaching and scientific research. Although a layman, the Ivy League is very good at fighting a "civil war". The coach still has to choose the athletes. However, there are not many talents who are both civil and military. If you want an excellent athlete, you have to relax your academic standards. 1997, Ivy stipulates that the minimum A ⅰ of athletes cannot be lower than a standard deviation of the school average A ⅰ. This is more beneficial to schools with a large number of students and a large gap in performance. However, the school still has some tricks, such as recruiting some "substitute players" with good academic performance and using them to "average" the team's academic performance, so as to recruit some players with poor academic performance but superior martial arts.
Secondly, it will give preferential treatment to the children of alumni. You may ask, this policy of giving preferential treatment to alumni children also exists in China. What does it have to do with money? You know, in American universities, especially private universities, alumni donations are the main source of school reserve funds. The income from the reserve fund can account for about one-fifth of the total expenditure of the school. Alumni can't afford to offend. In addition, if several generations of a family have graduated from the same school, the children of graduates from this alma mater's undergraduate college cannot be nephews; Can't be brothers and sisters; Can't be a grandson. In addition, one of the parents must have graduated from the institution you applied for. If your father graduated from Harvard Medical School and you applied to Harvard College, then you can't be regarded as an alumnus' child. But if you apply to Harvard Medical School, you will be an alumnus. In Ivy League schools, the admission rate of alumni's children is two or three times the normal admission rate. Among the undergraduates in Princeton University, 12% are alumni children. Although its normal admission rate is 13%, the "children" is as high as 40% or more. During the period of 1993- 1996, the admission rate of children of Dartmouth alumni was 40% to 46%.
In addition, if anyone expresses his willingness to donate a building, a laboratory and millions of cash, his only son or daughter can strut into the door of the Ivy League, even if the academic ranking is 1, 2. Although there are not many such students (more schools will slowly collapse), it always makes you feel that studying hard for ten years is not as good as someone else's father's check, and you feel bad. Besides the children of the rich, the children of celebrities and politicians are also taken care of. The existence of these students will greatly enhance the popularity of the school, so although the children of celebrities can't bring a lot of money right away, it will be great in the long run.
In addition to the above personnel, minority students will also receive preferential treatment. The ethnic minorities here only refer to blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans, and Asians are not among them. This is the direct or indirect result of the Federal Civil Rights Act. If the school is criticized by black civil rights groups and investigated by the federal government in this regard, the federal funding for school research and teaching may be terminated, which is a matter of life and death. Therefore, universities are very cautious in this respect and try not to get into trouble. Therefore, Dartmouth's black admission rate is higher than that of alumni children, which can reach more than 50%. This is why the proportion of black students in eight Ivy League schools is so close (about 6%).
So, how many students have squeezed into the Ivy League by themselves? The only reliable data comes from Dartmouth: about 60%. Other schools are not far behind.
In the early 1980s, some people studied the influence of non-academic factors on admission in three universities. These three schools are: Williams College, Colgate College and Bucknell University. They are all quite good private schools, and the admission rate does not exceed 50%. As can be seen from the following table, children and alumni of ethnic minorities play a considerable role in getting into good universities.
The influence of non-academic factors on freshmen's admission
Percentage increase of admission probability
Williams Colgate Bucknell
Background factors
Female 0 0-1
Ethnic minorities 53 46 5 1
Difficult growing environment 18 6-1
Region-10 10
Local residents 26 9 26
Parents:
The famous 332
Higher education level 2 0 0
Alumni 36 3 1 47
Personal realization
Community activities 3 4 -7
Sports 5 1 4
Leadership 3 10 7
Creativity 5 4 2
Writing:
Writing quality 17 7 9
Content 1 1 12 2
School recommendation 3 12 5
Teacher recommended 3 10 2
Excellent interview 23 17 30
The above introduction is mainly about the admission process of American students. The application of foreign students is quite different. First of all, for American students, the applicant's family economic status is not tested when entering school, which shows that there is no class and everyone is equal. For foreign students, the school's first consideration is whether the student can afford tuition and living expenses, because most foreign students can't accept federal aid. Therefore, there is a special content on the application form asking whether you need to apply for financial aid. If you answer "yes", you will immediately enter the "separate book", and the students who answer "no financial aid" will be roughly equal to American students.
Someone wrote a book telling students the 12 steps to enter an Ivy League university:
1. Understand the requirements and procedures for admission;
2. Make clear your own advantages;
3. Choose difficult and challenging high school courses;
4. Get good grades in standard exams (SAT, etc.). );
5. Pay attention to extracurricular activities;
6. Know the school you want to apply for;
7. Make full use of the opportunity to visit the university campus;
8. Know what kind of students you will be transferred to (ethnic, sports, academic, etc.). );
9. Write an amazing article when applying;
10. Plan your financial problems of higher education;
1 1. sell your strengths to the school;
12. Choose the school that suits you best.
The above is about the admission of undergraduates. Postgraduate admission varies greatly. First of all, most vocational colleges in the United States (medicine, law, business, seminary, etc. ) belongs to postgraduate education, that is, students admitted to these institutions must have a bachelor's degree. Moreover, each vocational college has its own enrollment, admission policy and admission team. Look at Harvard's example: Harvard Medical School is more tolerant of alumni children, while Harvard Law School has no special policy for alumni children at all. When medical schools and law schools admit new students, standard test scores are very important, while Harvard Theological Seminary does not require standard test scores at all (nor does it). Harvard medical school generally interviews applicants who have passed the primary election twice, and law schools and business schools do not interview. Business schools attach great importance to applicants' writing ability, and there are many short articles to be developed in the application materials. Although other colleges also require writing ability, it is dwarfed by business schools. Harvard college (undergraduate college) and business college are all staffed by full-time staff to take charge of new students' enrollment. The admission of new students to graduate schools and medical schools is mainly decided by professors.
Secondly, most graduate schools in American universities are called "graduate schools of arts and sciences" to show the difference from vocational graduate schools. The degrees awarded by vocational colleges have their own professional characteristics, such as doctor of medicine, doctor of law, master of business administration, doctor of philosophy and so on. Doctor of Philosophy is the highest degree awarded by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Whether you study mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy or geography, you have a doctorate in philosophy, which has nothing to do with philosophy. These departments are responsible for the enrollment of graduate schools of arts and sciences. For example, Harvard has forty or fifty departments, so there are forty or fifty policies and forty or fifty admissions committees (ranging from three to five people). The graduate school of arts and sciences also has an admissions office, but it is almost entirely responsible for the sending and receiving of materials, which generally does not play a decisive role in admission. Third, the admission of the graduate school of arts and sciences is not as strict as that of other colleges, and it is very likely that it will be admitted to other semesters, especially with the support of the research funds of tutors. Fourth, professors play a very important role in admission or not.
In short, American private universities take great pains in selecting new students, but they also enjoy it. The lower the admission rate, the higher the reputation and level of the school. What is more important than fame for a university? Secondly, if top students are selected from top students, their chances of success will be high. What can build a university's reputation more convincingly than cultivating outstanding talents?