Is there a certain minimum needed to be looked at. Because, what if someone has a TON of hooks and can obviously get in (just bear with me), but the schools doesn’t even look at him/her because he/she didn’t reach a minimum test score?
Seriously? If you look at any of their websites you will find each and every one of them will say “HOLISTIC”. So no, there’s not a cutoff.
With this in mind, carefully analyze each schools 25-75% marks. If you don’t make the 25% it’s a large large stretch even though you may have “a TON of hooks and can obviously get in”. Nobody can “obviously” get in. No offense but stop posting stupid threads.
There is no cutoff, but you should have ATLEAST a 31 (33-34 ideally).
For athletic hooks, the student needs to be in the Academic Index which has a few factors but gpa and scores are the biggest, so if your AI isn’t high enough it doesn’t matter that your hook is that you are the next LeBron or Tom Brady, you can’t go there and be an athlete.
HYP can let in anyone they want (but not let them play sports) but they don’t. If your parent is president of the US, that might be a hook where they’ll overlook the low ACT score. A hook that your third cousin’s uncle attended Yale? No.
Unless you have a ton of hooks and are a heavily recruited person (athlete or celeb or development kid or fac brat), even asking this question is a bad sign, IMHO
@OrangeAndWhite: You indicate. “a ton of hooks.” I believe you FAR overestimate the positive influence of most “hooks.” Legacy is normally considered a “hook,” but the admission advantage the child of a typical alum – who really has had no significant university involvement since graduation – is near-zero (especially at the most-selective universities). On the other hand, if your alumni parent has endowed scholarships, been the President alumni association, chaired his twenty-fifth reunion committee, funded the addition of a new wing to the law school, and other VERY substantial things – and that is extremely RARE – it likely will provide a benefit. Similarly, first generation/URM is unusually considered a “hook,” but it’s a quite small one because SO MANY individuals who have those demographics apply to the Ivies. The list is endless, but these example will suffice.
There is NO minimum ACT/SAT threshold . . . and there are “hooks” of varying importances. However FUNDAMENTALLY GPA, curricular rigor, standardized test results, recommendations, EC, essays, etc. have been, are, and will remain the CRITICAL acceptance factors.
Officially, no. They say they look at every application.
However, if your test scores are bad, then you can’t “obviously get in.” Quite the opposite, actually.