<p>I was valedictorian at my HS out of 600 seniors, president/captain of three organizations, state level honors, 2190/33, 770/750/690 SAT II's, 150 hrs. community service, blahblahblah and I was rejected or waitlisted at all the top 50 schools I applied to (Duke, JHU, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth). I only got into two schools, both in-state.</p>
<p>Onedown&onetogo, that is really interesting that your S got into Harvard without much effort (Congrats to him!). Given his very good but less than perfect numbers, lack of supplemental information, and no real apparent hooks, why do you think he was admitted?</p>
<p>Mulnella - Being valedictorian doesn't just mean you are a robot that is perfect. It shows a side of your personality. It shows you are responsible and that you are the ONE truly learning since if you really know the stuff you should be the one getting As. I love learning and so I study and study so that I absorb everything. As a result, I get good grades (As) and am valedictorian. It is not the valedictorian status itself that helps, it is what it reveals about the person.</p>
<p>"The lesson to be learned is that admission is never guaranteed but neither is rejection."</p>
<p>Thank you - those are encouraging words!</p>
<p>I'm not so sure that this would be encouraging to me (although I have nobody applying to college for a few years yet). Well, maybe it is sort of encouraging, but it is a little unsettling at the same time. It says to me that there are rules to the game you wish to play and you aren't allowed to know what they are.</p>
<p>I believe, statistically, Vals will have the better application.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It says to me that there are rules to the game you wish to play and you aren't allowed to know what they are.
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</p>
<p>There's always some amount of chance involved. But if you already have great grades, rank and scores, you're in a good position to stack the deck in your favor.</p>
<p>I was ranked #3, excellent grades, very good scores, got into my top-choice Ivy ED. My friend was valedictorian, 1560 SAT, Merit Scholar, published author, long history of excellence, etc. He was rejected from Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Caltech, Stanford. </p>
<p>I think it's because he put almost none of his personality and uniqueness into his application. He listed dates, numbers, facts, but his application was bland and uninformative on the important points (stuff you can't get from score reports and transcripts). I told him this when he asked me to read his apps, but he wouldn't change them, insisting that his performance to date should be enough to get him in. Well, it wasn't. And that was 10 years ago; it's even harder nowadays.</p>
<p>Both his parents had gone to Yale and were still very involved in alumni activities, etc., so he did manage to get in there (and has done very well). But according to his "numbers," he should have gotten in everywhere.</p>
<p>Even if you're valedictorian, you still have to stand out.</p>
<p>I guess so. S, who is currently a junior, got into all of the schools he applied to, so this is really not sour grapes. Likewise, D is nowhere ready to apply to colleges. As a parent, I just think it is a shame that the admission criteria is so obscure. Even some people who cannot make themselves "stand out" in their application are great people and would make excellent additions to the college community. Also, some people are just plain brilliant and will make important contributions to society, even if their apps are not filled with stand-out extras.</p>
<p>You have to understand that most schools look beyond GPA's and SAT scores and take into consideration who you are and if you'll be a good addition to their school for what you've chosen to study. For example, you apply to a strong engineering school and show through your extracurricular activities that you have done something on your free time to learn/explore the field of engineering. That would be a much better indication that you'd fit into the school over a student who got excellent grades in classes that have nothing to do with the field of engineering. There's also the personal statement and many other factors that could determine whether or not someone with incredible numbers could get rejected.</p>
<p>The colleges that vals typically apply to want a "holistic" process to decide and do want to know that the applicant isn't just a number. It's a hard decision, and a lot of it can be chalked up as luck, but the admissions offices usually do a good job of finding people that can contribute to campus life.</p>
<p>erhswimming ???????</p>
<p>My school doesn't even rank!!! On the day of graduation the val is called up, but doesn't even give a speech!</p>
<p>*sigh, I feel like I don't have a chance.</p>
<p>How do admissions evaluate you as a student? Do they value test scores and GPA about the same? The reason I'm asking this is, I'm a valedictorian with less than perfect test scores (2180/33) looking at Duke. I've got a lot of good ECs though, but the #2 and 3 have higher scores than me. </p>
<p>Is #1 for a good high school worth much if you've got subpar scores and you've got good competition in your high school?</p>
<p>GPA is valued above test scores.</p>
<p>if gpa is valued above test scores, is gpa also valued above rank?</p>
<p>for example, our valedictorian last year was accepted to harvard and upenn among other schools with a 3.9. he now goes to wharton.</p>
<p>our salutatorian however, had a perfect 4.0 and managed to be ranked 2nd after skipping her junior year, and jumping to the senior class. she was rejected from harvard and now attends princeton.</p>
<p>schools also take into consideration what school you are from, i.e. is it a competitive school that offers many AP courses and prepares students well for top tier colleges, or is it a school that offers few APs and isn't very competitive. despite the fact that colleges say the judge you "in the context of what your school offers", they still look at how well reputed your high school is, like it or not. go to any ivy league or other top-tier schools and you will discover that the majority of students came from a high school that is relatively competitive and challenged students.</p>
<p>I think that GPA doesn't really make that much sense without rank. My unweighted GPA is above a 5.0. Translation? My school doesn't really know how to calculate unweighted GPA. However, my rank is 1, and though 1 and 2 are REALLY close in my class (as in, we just switched, between 2nd and 3rd quarter of senior year :-//. double valedictorian?? it's THAT close...), in general, I think that says more about how well I've done in context of my school than just having a 5.0 GPA. (Especially when some schools skew grades to the point of having 10% of the class with 100% averages, etc!) </p>
<p>Though GPA and Scores say far LESS than ECs, essays and recs, which I estimate probably play <em>HUGE</em> factors in admissions.</p>
<p>Dear lkf725,</p>
<p>Regarding your question on how my son got into Harvard - I don't really know.</p>
<p>He roughly met the qualifications profile so I guess his interview went well (which is a crap shoot) and maybe his essay struck a chord with the admissions committee - it was a little quirky.</p>
<p>Since he's been there, he's met absolutely brilliant kids, kids who can out work anybody and kids who he looks at as just "average" (never would have expected to see them there) who aren't even legacies or athletes.</p>
<p>There is a randomness to admissions that one can not predict.</p>
<p>We have two valedictorians in my class this year. One just got into Pomona College and is definitely going there ( Our val from last year went there too) and our other one is waiting on Columbia this week.</p>
<p>The third-ranked girl in my class just got into one of the most competitive programs in america: USC's Bac/MD program.</p>
<p>I go to a competitive school in the highest paying school district in CA and I definitely feel that it pays off, seeing as how most of my class has gotten into elite privates already, without even hearing from the Ivies yet (Northwestern, JHU, USC, Stanford, POmona, NYU, Rutgers, UChicago, Colgate, etc.)</p>