[bsder]

Agreed.

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.

[jleyank]

Unless it’s fallen into an abyss, Penn has Wharton, which is a highly rated biz school. Thus, students wanting to go into “business” have a number of majors to choose from. And in ancient times when I was doing chemistry the accounting and finance majors were down there with us with crap gpa’s and tired students.

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.