Hey… I was wondering something about admissions into some of the top schools: Which schools focus almost exclusively on a person’s academic achievements, and which schools look for more of an extracurricular based student?
I know someone with near-perfect everything: ~1600 SATs, ~800 SAT IIs, 4.0 GPA, val, etc. and his ECs were almost absolutely nothing (a couple of clubs, no deep involvement in anything). He got into UPenn.
Someone else… She was a very solid academic person, but still below what a lot of ppl who get into Ivies get: 1390 SAT, low 700s on SAT IIs, top 20% class rank. Yet her ECs were extraordinary and she got into Columbia.
And then there was someone with both: 1590 SAT, 800s on all SAT IIs, valedictorian, Nationally ranked in table tennis, and he got rejected by all of his schools (hey, I warned him about not adding any real matches and safeties… he got rejected by all 4 ivies he applied to and other top notch schools).
<p>Oh, and if anyone out there could tell me what these schools are looking for, I would greatly appreciate it. After hearing those stories from those people I know and what the adcoms from schools say, I can't help but feel that those adcoms are bending around the things they say.</p>
<p>Here are the schools:</p>
<p>Princeton, Cornell, UPenn, JHU, Carnegie Mellon, William and Mary, Washington and Lee University</p>
<p>I think your examples support the idea that you can't really tell what they are looking for, just find your niche and go with it. Make a solid application.</p>
<p>I agree, I believe in my gut some appl. are just "too perfect" and besides wanting a broad spectrum of students, maybe they think here's one that didn't go by the book (literally sometimes) He was honest and this is what he does or doesn't do. I would think after thousands of them, it would be refreshing.</p>
<p>People are always asking exactly what it takes to get into college, and the admissions process simply is not that exact. If it was, colleges would just punch your stats into a computer, let a program calculate a mathematical score and be done with the whole admissions process. But you are a human being who is dealing with adcoms who are human beings, and you just can't place a score on the human experience. Even with schools like UC San Diego that tries to come up with a mathematical score,
<a href="http://admissions.ucsd.edu/dev3/info/comreview.html%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.ucsd.edu/dev3/info/comreview.html</a>
there is still room for human intervention to override any calculation. </p>
<p>College admission is not the Olympics where athletes with the highest score or winning time get to participate. The admissions process will never be exact or appear to be fair to everyone in every situation.</p>