<p>So I have heard that the admission commitee considers following in evaluating application. </p>
<p>50 % weight is give to your HS GPA, courses you take, how well you do in the HS.
25% weight to SAT score
25% weight to your essay, extra curricular activities. </p>
<p>Can someone corroborate this?</p>
<p>Each university is different. There is no single formula for all universities and each school probably has different formulas/criteria for each college of the university.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the school. In the Ivys since the people who are seriously applying have a high SAT, GPA, etc. The extra-curricular are more seriously considered.</p>
<p>Some schools put more emphasis on HS GPA. Some schools just use standardize scores for the first round screening. It all depends on the admission officer of each school.</p>
<p>Is there a way to know what criterion school is using prior to applying?</p>
<p>Look up the Supermatch in CC. It shows not only the admission stat of the schools, it also indicate how important each factor is.</p>
<p>
Does it really matter?</p>
<p>Or, put another way, are you going to change your entire approach to high school (work harder, do a greater number of extracurricular activities, participate in more academic competitions, play more sports, etc.) just because some college decides to weight various portions of your application in a certain way?</p>
<p>As you know, in order to have the best admissions chance at highly selective colleges, you should be earning the best grades, taking the most difficult classes at your school, demonstrating excellence in your extracurricular activities, and bumping up your standardized test scores as high as possible.</p>
<p>Get the most out of your high school experience (whatever that means)…and let the rest of the process play out. If I were you, I wouldn’t get my heart set on any one school in particular. There’s a certain amount of luck involved. Be yourself. Be happy. Things will work out. :-)</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>^ It does matter. It helps the student to prioritize the schools applications for a better chance. If one has a low GPA, he/she may want to avoid or put at lower priority those schools that weigh GPA heavily for instance.</p>
<p>I remember the head of harvard admissions once stated that they count gpa and recommendations foremost, ec activities second, ap and sat 2 subject tests third, and sat/act score last. i tried looking for the exact site but i can’t find it at the moment. but universities, even top schools like harvard, count ecs more than your sat 1 score. so if your sat score isn’t that good i wouldn’t worry about it; if you have nice extracurriculars it should make up for that. even an average gpa can be overshadowed for most schools by positive recommendation letters and extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>Nope. Read the book A is for Admissions, written by an ex Dartmouth adcom. She clearly spells out the most important things to Ivy League schools. It is a great read. Academics are much more important than ECs. Equally weighted: SATs/SAT2s/your GPA and class rank. SAT2s are even more important probably than the regular SATs. She also thinks it’s more important to have higher CR scores than math, because one uses CR more in college courses overall, and because CR scores can’t really be fudged, whereas all the SAT math scores do is test some lower level math skills and many Ivy leaguers have great math scores. Most of all, they need people to demonstrate honest intellectual promise and drive. If you are at the top academically you don’t need the ECs to help your case. Only if you have done something spectacular will ECs help pull you up despite so-so scores.</p>
<p>I think test scores count for a lot more than colleges let on, I really, really do. And I don’t just mean Ivy League schools. Almost all schools want kids with high test scores to make themselves look better. Large state schools, even more so. A lot of mediocre kids can have great GPAs just by going to easy high schools. They want to see hard classes and great scores. They will forgive mediocre scores from kids with underpriviledged backgrounds, but if you have had the breaks by birth, they will expect great scores.</p>
<p>I believe the holistic evaluation of applicants is not a single step simple formula. Standardized test scores may be used as a first round cut off to narrow down to a reasonable number of candidates for further evaluation. Then they will look at GPA, course load, EC, essays, subject tests, and individual section scores sequentially or simultaneously. EC, unless it is really spectacular, may not overcome a low GPA and test score as one may get eliminated in the early rounds.</p>
<p>
@billcsho:
Please explain what you mean by “prioritize the schools applications for a better chance.” Is that your way of describing the selection of a healthy mix of reach/match/safety schools? If so, I’m very much in favor of “stratifying” one’s applications in that way.</p>
<p>With regard to GPA-weighting, AFAIK, the vast majority of colleges place great importance on an applicant’s GPA. It’s rather pointless to assess a %-weighting to it since each admissions committee has its own internal GPA thresholds and procedure for triaging the stack of applications.</p>
<p>If your “prioritization” comment was referring to putting more/less work into applications to schools based on an applicant’s own record…
I’d argue that if the student isn’t giving “full” effort with regard to putting together a college application (essays, LORs, etc.), then he/she shouldn’t even be applying to that particular school. Over the years, I’ve seen that even with certain colleges that have a reputation for being more “quantitative” (numbers-oriented) in the admissions process, such as the Univ. of California schools, essays and/or extracurricular activities can be very important.</p>
<p>The OP is asking for information that, even if he/she had it, would still be rather uninterpretable. So why even bother?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Another place to find this information (and a lot more of interest) is to Google “Common Data Set” and the name of the college. Almost every college posts this info in a standard format on their websites, usually several years’ worth. They don’t give you weights, but give you some idea of the importance they say they place on each factor.</p>
<p>The question is let’s say your SAT score is 1900-2000 range which is not super high at the same time it is not low. SAT score, GPA is something you can quantify and there can be direct comparision.</p>
<p>EC’s, recommendation letters etc etc is very subjective.</p>
<p>How does one apply to 6-9 best colleges that one can possibly get in is the million dollar question.</p>
<p>Does it really matter?</p>
<p>It does. Let’s say you can only apply to so many colleges, wouldn’t you want to maximize your chances of acceptance to the best of the colleges and hence it does matter knowing criterion they use.</p>
<p>
@redpoint:
Actually, the only conclusion which can be drawn from that particular book is…that’s how the Dartmouth admissions committee was run when Michele Hernandez was a part of it. That being said, I wouldn’t doubt that most Ivy League schools implement a first-pass, calculated “academic index” (consisting of GPA, strength of curriculum, class rank, and standardized test scores). I’d also be willing to bet that there’s a separate pile for “special” applicants who didn’t make the “academic index” cut. Such students will still be reviewed on account of one or more exceptional talents/experiences.</p>
<p>That is not really what you want to do… you want to apply to the 6-9 colleges that are the best fit for you (academically, financially, socially, geographically, etc.). And you want to apply to a couple of reaches (where your stats might be on the lower end), a few matches (where your stats fall in the midde), and a couple of safeties (where you are almost sure to get in and can afford to attend). The hard part of this process isn’t getting accepted, IMHO. It is finding the right colleges to fit that list so you could be happy attending ANY of them. Don’t apply where you don’t want to go, and apply to some colleges you are sure to get into.</p>
<p>I think you are asking the wrong question – because “best college” isn’t necessarily the one with the highest ranking or that accepts the students with the highest statistics. It is the best college for YOU.</p>
<p>
@bella1234:
There’s a difference between knowing the specific quantitative weighting of various dimensions of a college application…and figuring out which colleges would be reaches/matches/safeties given a certain GPA and SAT score.</p>
<p>Based on what you’ve written, I get the feeling that you’re approaching the college application process as a what’s-the-highest-US-News-and-World-Report-ranked-university-that-I-can-get-into exercise. If that’s the case, I’d recommend changing that mindset. Start by figuring out what’s important to you in terms of selecting a college (academic environment, special programs, size, job-placement record, locale, extracurricular activities, research opportunities, mentoring, etc.). Then go from there. Perusing the widely published “numbers” (GPA, SAT/ACT index) for accepted students at various colleges will help you determine whether a school is a reach/match/safety. If your high school uses a service like Naviance, feel free to use that tool as well. It will give you an indication of how other kids from your high school with similar GPAs/standardized test scores have fared at securing acceptances from specific colleges.</p>
<p>The author of A is for Admissions describes the scales that all the schools use, and says that they are pretty much the same, with some variations. She said they are still the same as they were 10+ years ago when the book went out. No substantial differences. Another good book to read about the process is Jacques Steinberg’s book on Wesleyan admissions, The Gatekeepers, and Creating a Class by Mitchell Stevens. Great reads. If you want to know, the information is out there, for the most part.</p>
<p>There are different piles, depending on circumstances, but the author says that the most important factor is the academic index, with mitigating circumstances.</p>
<p>But, does it matter: For me, I think students should do what they want to do and go to the school that is right for them, not because it is prestigious. Why conform to some random person’s standards? Please yourself.</p>
<p>
@redpoint: For an admissions director to make the pronouncement that “all” college admissions committees function in such-and-such way is…well…just someone with that particular background making a speculative statement.</p>
<p>I think the OP would be well served to follow the advice of intparent regarding “best fit” in this thread:
The test for applying to a college should be: “Would I be happy attending a college if I were accepted only there…and nowhere else?”</p>