For All 2015 Applicants - A Note About Applying

Applying to College
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<p>Hello to all the pFrosh out there!</p>

<p>I've glanced over a good number of the threads on this forum, and a lot of them are "Chance Me" posts. Many of these posts list academic history, test records, extracurricular involvement, and the like. However, for the fields "Essays" and "Recommendations", many of them are just "Good", or "Alright".</p>

<p>I would like to tell you that the essays and recommendations are a lot more important than many of these posts make them appear.</p>

<p>The way I see it, your statistics get your foot in the door. As long as you have a satisfactory base of academic history (2000+ SAT, good number of AP courses, depending on availability, extracurricular involvement, some kind of leadership position, decent GPA), you'll be set in that respect.</p>

<p>However, the essays and recommendations are what separate the men from the boys. When it comes down to it, Adcom doesn't see a difference between a 2200 and a 2300 SAT, nor one between a 4.5 and a 4.7 GPA, nor one between being President of one club versus two.</p>

<p>What Adcom does look for, however, is a sense of each individual. DO NOT slack on your essays. In addition, DO NOT take the recommendations lightly. These are very important, because these are the factors that are going to set you apart from the other exceptionally gifted academics out there.</p>

<p>So what's the point behind this post? Stop asking people to chance you based off of your statistics. Instead, focus on how you can make your essays great, or how you can get better recommendations from your teachers. Get feedback on your essays from your teachers, or your counselor, or your peers, if you feel comfortable enough sharing.</p>

<p>Anyway, good luck to all you pFrosh out there, and feel free to ask me any questions about Duke (where I am currently a freshman), or the application process!</p>

<p>~Jimmy</p>

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<p>^I hope your only talking about the top 15 or top 20 schools, because thats when it comes down to subjective factors. Other than that good test scores, good transcript, some ec activity, and above average essays, should give you a pretty good chance everywhere. (there are exceptions though…)</p>

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<p>Thank you so much, Jimmy! Completely agree, great post :)</p>

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<p>theRADtomato47:</p>

<p>Well yeah, but good essays never hurt anyone. I would expect that for all universities, excellent essays give applicants an edge over applicants with similar stats.</p>

<p>Having good stats, of course, is important to get your foot in the door. For some of the lower-ranked schools, this can often be enough. But when you get to the top schools, subjective matters become much more important.</p>

<p>~Jimmy</p>

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<p>^Agree :slight_smile: I see way too many of those “Chance me for (Insert Ivy league/top 15 school here)”. Good advice man, this should help those applicants spend less time making chance threads and more time revising their essays. (Hopefully)</p>

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<p>Thanks, and yeah I hope applicants are putting in the extra effort into those essays. . . they are worth more than people seem to think.</p>

<p>~Jimmy</p>

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<p>How important do you guys think the letters of rec actually are? I don’t see people paying much attention to them anywhere on the site here. Can having a really really good letter make as much of a difference as having a really good essay?</p>

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<p>why is this for 2015 Applicants?</p>

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<p>As applications increase, teachers are burdened with writing increasing numbers of recs and the information they provide becomes increasingly generic. As such, recs are becoming less valuable.</p>

<p>The whole threshold argument regarding stats is also largely untrue. If there is a threshold, it is well within the upper 2300’s for the SAT, not a 2000, or a 2100, or a 2250.</p>

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<p>^ So would someone who has a 2380 have a much bigger advantage over someone with, say, 2230.</p>

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<p>@goodwood - I don’t think SAT scores are as important as all that. I think if you have a good application, good recs and good grades, then your SATs just need to be in the normal range for the schools. I think for an otherwise really good applicant, then lower range SAT scores also have a decent shot. OTOH, poor grades, mediocre recs, or a bad or boring application will hurt you a lot more.</p>

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<p>@Goodwood—yes.
@OP—I heard a stat that most (>90%) teacher recs are generic/repeat EC’s/grades,etc. and give nothing new to the applicant. Thus they are having less weight in the admissions process than before. But nonetheless, a really good rec can help, albeit this is rare in each school’s applicant pool.</p>

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<p>Outstanding and enlightening post. Thank you.</p>

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<p>Yes, though someone with a 2380 wouldn’t be disadvantaged compared to a 2400 (meaning the 2380’s rejection would almost certainly be due to non-testing factors, whereas your 2230’s rejection would likely be in part related to scores).</p>

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<p>Teacher recommendations hardly matter at all. They’re given very little weight.</p>

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<p>The problem with saying “essays and recs matter a lot, focus on them,” is that these are the two parts of the application that the applicant can’t accurately self-assess. I don’t know whether or not my letters of rec will be good, beyond a rough guess based on my experience with the teacher, and I can’t improve that chance. I can improve my essays, but it’s extremely difficult for a student to adequately guess whether or not their essays are “good enough,” which is why most students will just put “good” for their essays - they don’t know.</p>

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<p>^Your screenname is entirely appropriate then, lol</p>

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<p>^Not really. It’s not that indecisive can’t choose whether the essays are good enough, but simply that s/he doesn’t know.</p>

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<p>Farail: Recommendation letters are used to see what your teachers think of you (obviously). I would think that unless your letter was incredibly good (and not fake sounding), it wouldn’t make too much of a difference. I’ve always viewed recommendation letters as insurance, to make sure that all the things you say about yourself aren’t lies.</p>

<p>IAmChris: Because they’re the ones applying right now.</p>

<p>goodwood8: A 2380 is better than a 2230, but probably not by too much. Your standardized test-taking ability isn’t as important as your character and personality, IMO.</p>

<p>glassesarechic: I disagree about the score threshold. Adcoms are paying more attention to qualitative matters and less to quantitative ones nowadays. An SAT score says very little about a person’s character or background. . . I would argue that as long as you are above a certain point, you’ll be fine. If you are below it, it’ll be harder to get the “yes”, but it’s still possible. I know someone at Duke who had an 18something. . . which isn’t at all impressive but she managed to get accepted nonetheless.</p>

<p>theRADtomato47: I agree about the generic recommendation point. . . I don’t know as much about that but it makes sense. I think recommendations are more like insurance, to make sure that you’re not incredibly exaggerating your qualifications.</p>

<p>~Jimmy</p>

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<p>veryindecisive: True. That’s why it’s important to get feedback on your essays. For recs, its harder to tell, unless your teacher offers to let you read it. . . one of mine did.</p>

<p>The biggest thing about essays is to make sure it shows your character and personality. For example, I am a sarcastic kind of guy who enjoys casual humor. My common app essay was a satire on political apathy. I think that was a big factor in my acceptances, because I didn’t think Adcom read many satires.</p>

<p>In addition, the whole “Chance Me” thing is kind of silly, because nobody here (except for AOs) can really assess your chances of getting accepted. None of us know each other or what we’re like. But OTOH, people take comfort in getting support from others, so it makes sense that “Chance Me” threads exist.</p>

<p>~Jimmy</p>