<p>How much do they help you?</p>
<p>and what is a priority application? what schools send them?</p>
<p>Priority is basically the state school equivalent of Early Action. Not binding but increases your admissions chances.</p>
<p>“priority application” is a marketing tool. They roughly understand that your SAT/GPA are within range of their normal acceptees, they got your info from some list of high scorers </p>
<p>and now they are wooing you. All things being equal, they want you to apply and barring anything catastrophic, you’re likely to be admitted.</p>
<p>Sometimes you get a priority app simply because you’ve expressed interest in a school or visited and in that case it doesn’t indicate that you have much of any increased chance of admission.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t put too much stake in it</p>
<p>yeah I think that too here in the northeast ans new england this pull that too just to say they got lots of applications and then they post their reject number as high they think we are all so stupied to believe them on their stats mean while a lot of schools don’t meet their quota for enrollment .it’s all marketing to build their numbers they don’t know or care who you are it’s just about the numbers.although the bad horrible economy is changing things very quickly for normal colleges NOT ivy or mini Ivy the rich high profile schools will always be a non issue but for the rest it most certainly is.</p>
<p>sorry; don’t agree with above posters…they get your info from either college board or ACT; yes, your scores are “in the range”…but I do not think it increases your chances of admittance…</p>
<p>UChicago and Tulane are basically covering the globe this year; no way their priority app increases chance of admission…</p>
<p>My son got letters from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, congratulating him on his scores and academic achievement. Does he have a better chance of getting in since they wrote directly to him? How many kids get these letters? I know they want to increase applicants but Harvard’s letter is four pages…</p>
<p>^^^^^</p>
<p>Those letters from the Ivies are also mass marketing tools.</p>
<p>dopp: don’t be fooled. They bought the list of high scorers from collegeboard, and that’s why your son got the letter. They’re hoping he’ll apply because they need a high number of applications to keep up their mystique and their ratios.</p>
<p>Yeah, I got a priority app from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute even though there’s no way they’d ever accept me. (My GPA isn’t even 3.0) I wouldn’t put too much stock in them.
However, it’s nice when you get one for a school you were already planning to apply to.</p>
<p>I take a somewhat less cynical view regarding motive than a few of the above posters, but they are basically correct. The colleges tell the various testing agencies what their target student is like in terms of test results, reported GPA, whatever and send their marketing material accordingly, including the “priority” or “personal” applications. It does not mean they will be accepted since of course there is more to any application than just the test scores. Do they have a better chance? Only in the sense they have at least one piece of the puzzle that meets the school’s criteria. Otherwise no, their chances are no better or worse than anyone else.</p>
<p>FYI for the person that got all the Ivy letters, it was the same for my D (2330 SAT, 3.85 GPA UW, etc. etc.) There are tens of thousands of students that meet the standards for getting such a letter, and only 2,000 can go to Harvard each year. Obviously the letter means little other than an acknowledgment that your student had some outstanding results and that they might have a shot at a top school. No more, no less.</p>
<p>I believe I heard somewhere that Harvard sends out 50,000 full applications each year</p>
<p>^ Is that all? They get over 30K applications.</p>