<p>And if not, which colleges don't? Which ones admit to it openly? Is there a standard algorithm, are there things that can't be measured in points?</p>
<p>I've seen references to stuff being "worth points", but it's never mentioned in official documents. I'm just curious.</p>
<p>Of the 20 or so colleges I looked into in depth, most of them don’t use a point system or they don’t tell you about it.</p>
<p>You can look up the Common Data Set of a college to see the important admission factors for that college.</p>
<p>Many colleges say they use a holistic approach. Some colleges use more of a “grade” system, label apps with a grade like 1-5 or something like that. A few have a point system like a formula.</p>
<p>UC San Diego is one that uses a point system and here is the link
[UC</a> San Diego Comprehensive Review Admission Process: Freshman Selection, Fall 2010](<a href=“http://www.ucsd.edu/prospective-students/freshmen/eval-process.html]UC”>http://www.ucsd.edu/prospective-students/freshmen/eval-process.html)
They are open about it and applicants can find out where the cut off is each year.</p>
<p>Dukes labels applicants from 1-5 in 6 categories of evaluation, but it’s used only for quick reference, not objective comparison. I.e. a person with 24 points isn’t going to automatically be chosen over the person with 22 points; they’ll be considered holistically. </p>
<p>The colleges that are formula/points based are usually the large state schools.</p>
<p>whether it be numeric points, or letter grades, there must be some way to rank order the strength of applicants as a total package … there must be some way to encapsulate the gestalt of a 40 minute file review into numbers, letters, or even summaric words (i.e. MUST HAVE, Excellent, Strong, maybe, and NO – which is no different from 5,4,3,2,1, or A, B, C, D, E.</p>
<p>Whether this summary letter, number or phrase is arrived at by creating subscores for Academic Performance, Testing, Recommendations, ECs, Uniqueness, or some other subscales, is just mechanics.</p>