Could have posted this on any school forum…but the acceptance/scholarship thread made me think of it again.
My wife and I are both HS educators so I come at this with some knowledge but college admission is not my/her area. She has often stated her opinion is that state schools don’t even sniff your EC’s and that it is completely data driven.
My son as an example trends slightly higher on data…1480/33 4.7 WGPA…but has very average EC’s…not embarrassing by any means but not really noteworthy. He received 15,000 and OOS waiver…NCC says he will get 17,500 total. More than many of the kids listed below who have slightly less in the data department but WAY better EC’s.
Then there is class rank which to me is a separate red herring. My S is a student in an early college with 50 kids a class. He always says he is about middle of the pack for his class. So his class rank is 50%?..is it fair to rank him that way?.. or do any university’s care outside of his data? IMHO he was judged solely on his data …which in this case worked for him.
My own personal opinion is that state schools ignore EC’s until it comes down to the very big scholarships. In our case my S did not really have the data for those in the first place so maybe not a factor at all except in the last few selected.
My S is my oldest so this is my first go around. I have found the process confusing and in some ways misleading. I think college admissions at some level has become an industry that dang near takes professional help to navigate. This has been the best resource I have found to wade through it.