I heard from a friend of mine that even if the school that you’re applying to says that their review if holistic, they literally skip your essays, recs, ECs and other factors as soon as they see that your GPA or test scores are below their range. Is this true? For example, for Stanford, Brown etc.
Not necessarily true. It’s more like if you had consistently subpar grades then they’ll probably pass on you. For example, if you are a B- or C+ average student throughout school vs you had a couple of bad grades but overall you’re an A- student. If you have a good explanation for those few bad grades, adcoms will certainly take it into consideration.
Yes, they can use automatic filters that weed out applicants who do not demonstrate academic competency, meaning that an actual human being in the admissions office will never even see the application. However, they usually draw the line a bit below their 25th percentile. For example, the ACT range for Umich is 30-34, so I would say you can expect them to place their cutoff at roughly 27 for normal applicants. Of course they are going to claim that they have accepted students with lower scores, but those people are probably the athletes.
@umcoe16 It would be useful if you provided a source for this.
I think it’s true at most schools. After all “holistic” doesn’t mean that grades and scores aren’t factors. There’s literally no essay or EC or rec letter that would get a 2.5 GPA 950 SAT kid into Yale, for instance.
Agree with the above. Holistic does not mean that one doesn’t need to have the academic qualification for a school he/she is applying to.
Not for URM’s and certain demographics they are trying hard to recruit. For them, Schools look for a chance to say yes. For Asians, White males and other non nontargeted demographics very true probably. For them schools often look for reasons to say no.
@VeryLuckyParent - Even URMs are disqualified for low GPAs and test scores. They may have a different threshold (we’ll never know for sure, of course), but grades and scores are still major factors.
Selective schools get thousands of apps from qualified URMs. Where does this idea on CC come from that there are only sufficient numbers of talented white or Asian applicants?
(it’s also a derail into a barely-tangential can of white victimhood worms)
It’s not that there are no talented URM’s. That would be a silly assertion. But I do think that adcoms will look for other things in an URM’s application besides GPA and test scores before discarding it unless it is way off from their Twenty fifth percentile. Unless an Asian or white kid has a good hook, they most likely won’t get that treatment. For those two groups, if their stats are lower than 25th percentile, it’s game over. Adcoms are not going to spend time on the rest of the application
I think colleges make the first cut at “can you handle the academics?” That is going to be revealed through grades and test scores.
“For Asians, White males and other non nontargeted demographics”
Change “white males” (45% of college students) to “white females” (55%). E.g., being male is a hook at Kenyon.
“But I do think that adcoms will look for other things in an URM’s application besides GPA and test scores before discarding it.”
I have news for you: for a tippy top holistic, every kid gets a look at his/her “besides stats” in first cut. Any kid can create a bad impression or come across as lackluster, even if he’s a top performer.
My answer is: unless your friend works for college admissions and names his particular college, he doesn’t know. He heard it from someone who heard it from someone else. I’d bet he couldn’t even name the “range.” Your own savvy should realize this, especially if you’re aiming for the level of Stanford and Brown.
Those schools will fully read everyone a first time. It’s fast. Poor stats poses a risk, may make that first review lightning fast, does affect their perception of your core abilities or attention. But doesn’t mean they “literally skip your essays, recs, ECs and other factors…”
Don’t take this to mean, if your own stats are subpar, you’re fine. Having your own “rest of the picture” overcome poor stats is a challenge many hs kids don’t know how to do well. It’s hard enough even for top stats kids.
@Mrduque admissions officers are obviously not going to release this information. But the reasonable person should have a good sense of whether or not their grades and test scores will allow them a chance. Automatic filters are not that hard to create, and are a very quick and effortless way to narrow down the applicant pool. There is definitely a valid reason for using them - what’s the point in reviewing an applicant’s other credentials if they are very unlikely to succeed academically at the university? Statistically, you will often be able to see that grades and test scores do predict academic performance when they fall below a certain threshold.
Holistic comes into play when choosing who among too many academically qualified applicants will be admitted.
Why is it so hard to accept that holistic is holistic? Sure, they could create a filter, but holistic is not top down. Nothing says the highest stats kids are automatically the best at what that college wants in them. CC spends a lot of energy on rank and stats, misses what the rest represents.
The tippy tops have very high grad rates. Succeeding isn’t all about college GPA. It may affect some grad or professional acceptances, may matter if you want to go into IB or certain exclusive fields. But predicting college GPA is not all of what top adcoms look for. You’ve got to realize that.
Maybe because as @marvin100 said:
Even if they look at every single application, I would expect they spend a lot less time on a kid they don’t think will be able to handle the rigor.
Nobody’s saying that…but I would hope you would agree that there is some cutoff where a student’s stats just isn’t going to cut it.
The original question was about “literally skipping.” I agree a review of a kid who barely passes is going to be a quick look. OP used Stanford and Brown as examples. They’ll want to to see if something special overcomes, somehow, or there’s some fluke there, a weird number system, some key piece missing or some greatness.
I’m not saying subpar kids don’t have a challenge. I work for a holistic and know they read through.