<p>Adcoms tend to speak in rosy terms, omitting some of the competitive realities. I don’t necessarily think it’s to collect an extra 10k apps (though $700k is a nice number) or to lower their admit percentage. I think it starts with a hypersensitivity about how anything they say can be misinterpreted. From that, it just becomes a middle-of-the road “admissions-speak.” Make things seem possible. Make people like you.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to burst any balloons. The issue of SAT/ACT scores is similar to statements like “we’ll make college affordable.” It’s comforting. In reality, “affordable” is their assessment, not yours. Likewise, how they actually view your stats will depend a lot on the competition- and the U’s institutional goals.</p>
<p>So, make the best decisions you can, without getting neurotic. Don’t omit valid ECs because someone thinks they don’t matter. Don’t assume “dedication to a more specific area of intellectual interest” means being unilateral. It can mean that, by 18, you have identified and begin to pursue a major interest. Good luck.</p>
<p>ps. 1800 is not out of range for an Ivy. You just have to have the right “otherwise.” And, on the subject of not assuming: let’s not knee-jerk assume admitted URMs are sub-par. There are thousands of strong candidates to choose among.</p>
<p>Samonuh- which way do you risk more? Narrowing your self-presentation or providing an interesting and valid, fuller picture? Top schools want kids who do more than sit in the library or lab. </p>
<p>Think of it as a bell curve. Very few kids (outliers) fall at the uppermost reaches of pre-college accomplishment in their prospective major field. It’s good to narrow your major- even if the first and second ideas seem to be at odds. It shows your focus. It’s good to then say, eg, I’m pre-med, worked at the hosp, did research, was on sci olympiad. But, why purposely omit that you also love acting in plays or tennis or that you wrote for the lit mag? Etc. Always remember adcoms are strangers- and that they want to like you.</p>
<p>So if I want to major in Economics/Government and then go into Law, it’s still okay if my main ECs were music oriented? Our marching band is #1 in the NorthEast and one of the best in the country and I’m one of the best percussionists in the state. My volunteer work also involves music and the arts. So I have climbed to the top of something…just not my major field of academic studies.</p>
<p>Why does it surprise anyone that SATs are the least important part of the application? This is something Cornell (and many of us on this board) have been saying for a long time. I have seen people with high scores not get in to Cornell and people with low scores be admitted. It’s about what each individual school is looking for, how hard you’ve worked in high school, your leadership, your essays (and your ablity to articulate why Cornell and the particular school you’re applying to are a fit for you).</p>
<p>Cornell makes little money in the application process, as oldfort says. And getting more applicants will do very little for Cornell’s rankings.</p>
<p>@Samonuh: Absolutely. You have demonstrated leadership ability, creativity and knowledge of music. Especially if you’re applying to Arts & Sciences, who is going to want applicants who will take advantage both science and the humanities.</p>
<p>And these students bring very tangible benefits to the school (“tangible” as in very visible) for which the school will cut them a break. It still doesn’t negate the fact most applicants are neither URMs nor recruited athletes. For them, SAT scores matter and probably matter more than most adcoms will let on. </p>
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<p>And how do you know each application gets a thorough review? When applying to medical schools, there are occasions where LITERALLY the day after your check clears, you receive a rejection letter. Clearly, these applicants were marked for rejection based on their primary application and yet were still sent a secondary application (which always demands an additional fee of $60-120). Very little processing occurred with these applications. I don’t think an application with a 1700 SAT score receives the same degree of scrutiny as an application with a 2200 SAT score. </p>
<p>I tend to have a very cynical view of the admissions process because I’ve seen adcoms flat out lie about applicants’ chances (always always always too optimistically). At best, adcoms lie because they don’t have the heart to tell the kid right in front of them that they have no chance at Cornell.</p>
<p>Samonuh- yes, go ahead with the music. It’s an accomplishment and reveals more about you. You’ll have a chance to mark on the EC section of the CA if band (or whatever) is something you hope to continue in college. Ideally, though, you also have some stu govt, MUN or something involving public policy, advocating, some research or the like, to shore up your interest in econ/govt. Good luck.</p>
Took me a second to read that. No, I wasn’t mad, sorry if I sounded like it. </p>
<p>My daughter’s EC was ballet and she majored in math. It was also on her resume when she applied for a finance job. After brain teasers, most her interviewers enjoyed talking to her about ballet. She didn’t have a long list of clubs or jobs related to math or finance, and it made her more of a multi-dimensional person (applicant).</p>
<p>I don’t know if the adcoms try to say optimistic things for the sake of being ‘nice’ to prospective applicants. I think the real big issue at hand is that admissions to top colleges are unpredictable, and they adopt ‘holistic’ method to admission. Applicants’ stats matter, but don’t tell the whole story. That is the reason why the adcoms at most top schools are so damn ambiguous and unclear about prospective students’ chances.</p>
<p>Case in point, each year there are tons of 2300+ SAT scorers and valedictorians who get rejected from Harvard. Yet, there are people getting in with lower stats. The thing is getting into a top college is very subjective, and geting into Harvard/Princeton/Ivies takes a lot of ‘soft’ factors.</p>
<p>You will see that grad school admissions (especially Law School) adcoms are much more straightforward with students’ chances, just because, law school admissions are much more predictable/number-driven than undergrad. I went to Columbia Law’s info session, and there were couple of current students as well as a representative who could tell a kid’s chance in a matter of seconds, just looking at the student’s GPA and LSAT score. There was one rep who told a kid with medicore stats: “Maybe Columbia isn’t the school for you. If you get your score upto 172 range, you will stand a chance tho.” A kid with 3.9 and 175 LSAT is a SHOE-In for Harvard Law School, yet a kid with perfect numbers is far away from being guarnateed an admission to Harvard College. </p>
<p>I have no doubt that adcoms at Harvard Law School would have no problem telling a prospective applicant with a 3.5 GPA and 167 LSAT: “Thanks for your interest in our school, but you stand no f-ing chance to get in here whatsoever.”</p>
<p>Went to Cornell info session last summer. The admissions speaker and our student tour guide practically guaranteed admission to all the tour takers. Any student, any study was repeated many times. Several kids asked about what Cornell was looking for in a GPA and were told “as long as you have mostly A’s & B’s you’re good to go!” For an Ivy League school? No one asked about SATs, probably because many were rising juniors and hadn’t taken yet.</p>
<p>But based on the questions asked, most of the tour takers didn’t seem to understand they were visiting a highly selective school and Cornell didn’t dispense them of that notion. I liked the non-snooty factor but wondered how many applications of non-qualified students those info sessions gain.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure “mostly A’s and B’s” is bad advice for Cornell. Really for Cornell you should have all A’s and no B’s on your high school transcript. You can probably get away with a couple freshman/sophomore year, and MAYBE later if the B’s (and they better be B+'s) were in an AP/honors course. With any B’s on your transcript, you’re going to need to compensate with test scores and you also better hope those B’s aren’t in anything remotely connected to your major.</p>
<p>Holistic admissions suggest to me that high SAT scores are necessary but not sufficient. It doesn’t suggest to me that high SAT scores are not necessary. I think it’s fine to tell a 2300-SAT applicant that they might not get into Cornell over a 2200-SAT applicant. However, I don’t think it’s equally accurate to tell a person with a 1900 SAT score that SAT’s don’t matter. They should know that there is a high high chance they won’t get into Cornell.</p>
<p>Holistic admissions tell me that admissions is kinda lottery after certain point. As long as you have 2100~ SAT and top 10% class rank, you can rest assured that you are in the game with any other applicant. This still allows for large margin of uncertainty and unpredictability, and to an extent, unfairness.</p>
<p>I say that from my experience. Back in my high school, my close friend was a valedictorian and had 2360 SAT. This guy had straight A’s on over 10 freaking AP courses, and got all 5’s on AP tests. He did not get into Cornell. (He got into Harvard, btw) But, I did. I was barely top 10% and had 2100 SAT. My friend was, I admit, at least twice smarter than I was, especially in math or science. (He used to tutor me Calc and Physics on free time) I think that this kid is smarter than over 90% of all people I met while at Cornell. Maybe not, but, see, that is very ‘holistic’ admission to me, and it is, to an extent, a screwed-up process.</p>
<p>This kid also didn’t get into Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth. (Got into Harvard and Penn.) Waitlisted at Columbia. Rejected from Cornell. It just shows how random the process is. Getting into a top school takes a lot of luck. It is essentially a lottery. Adcoms say nice things imo because they truly don’t ‘know’ people’s chances by just looking at scores and GPA.</p>
<p>It’s not “kinda lottery” and it’s not random. No adcoms at top schools go eenie-meenie-minee with their final pool. It’s about the actual “whole” quality of the app and the institutional needs. And, no one kid’s acceptance or rejection shows some pattern you can count on.</p>
<p>Colleges need to meet their own goals- it’s not so much about rewarding your past performance as trying to predict your future college performance from your past achievements and the app package you submit- incl ECs, LoRs and the darned essays and short answers. Plus, trying to build a freshman class with geographiclal diversity, fill empty seats in certain depts or programs, maybe add females to STEM majors, or males to depts where they are underepresented, plus all the rest. Remember, the app pkg is all they have to go on- they only know you from that.</p>
<p>Oldfort makes a good point. There are kids whose apps show some disinterest (eg, the Why Us? doesn’t quite apply to that college) or whose stated interests don’t fit that college.</p>
<p>Did your friend (whiz kid) do any extracurricular activities? If not I can definitely see why schools would not accept him (related to the whole “holistic” approach). As other posters have said, there are so many factors that go into the admission process that you can never expect anything.</p>
<p>It is much more of ‘lottery’ and ‘random’ than people would like. Honestly, college is where you go to learn. Why not admit people primarily based on academic merit? There are many who get rejected despite stellar academic record, and many manage to sneak in despite not having as impressive academic credentials through ‘holistic’ admissions. Again, I did not have ‘top’ scores or grades, nor was I an URM or athelete, yet I got into Cornell while many others with higher academic promise were turned down. I am not solely speaking of my friend’s result to back up. But, it is the trend at all top colleges. What I would advocate is that colleges admit people largely based on academic credentials, and give ‘small’ plus points to borderline applicants who display strong ‘soft’ factors as well. Yet, I don’t think this is the case with college admissions today.</p>
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<p>As a point of comparison, compare college admissions to law school admissions. Surely, law schools would like to have gender or geographical diversity, or have other ‘needs’ they want, but they admit candidates primarily based on academic merits alone. ‘Soft’ factors rarely play a role, or they become small bonus points to borderline applicants. For example, it would be very rare for a top law school to admit a kid with 3.7 GPA who had better extracurricular, over a kid with 3.9 GPA and no extracurricular at all. As a result, the process is much more meritocratic and more predictable. Compared to this, college admissions is a pure lottery system, as long as an applicant has competitive enough numbers to begin with.</p>
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<p>I think ‘fit’ is overrated. All colleges’ purposes are same: they teach students. And students go to learn. It is not like a kid would be far better served to attend Brown over Cornell, or vice versa, in pursuing his/her undergraduate academic career.</p>
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<p>I don’t know the details of his extra curriculars/ other softs. Yet, he managed to get into Harvard and Penn. So, I would assume he had competitive enough softs as well. I know for fact that he was heavily involved in math and science related research and olympiad, or something like that. But, he was not very atheletic, tho.</p>