[Nrsolis]

Uh, LOTS of folks in the admitted class at Harvard Business School each year is military officers.

Ivy League admissions for both undergrad and graduate programs is NOT what most people think it to be. There are MANY factors they consider and it's not all about grades/test scores/sports.

[argonaut]

Are you seriously going to 1) extrapolate graduate admissions to undergrad admissions, and 2) go against hard data with an anecdote?

For #1, grad schools are looking for extremely different things than undergrad. In fact, the plurality, if not majority, of grad admits at top schools are internationals. As another example, most PhD programs care about your research almost to the exclusion of all other factors. Extracurriculars? Don't matter very much.

Business school programs most heavily weight your work experience (followed by test scores, essays, and extracurriculars), which is why a lot of military officers get in, because of their impressive leadership-related work experience.

[Nrsolis]

My point was to answer the comment that red-state extracurriculars serve as a black mark in the Ivy League. I think it's clear that they don't.

And data is not what you're basing your argument on. It's an interpretation of some data that might be flawed in collection methodology, reporting errors, false conclusions from over fitting and other common errors that occur in studies.

For the record, I served in the military, and earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard and know of many others who did the same. Painting the Ivies as somehow anti-military kinda rubs me the wrong way.